


thirteen

by emi_lyliz



Series: Wayward [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-24
Updated: 2018-05-17
Packaged: 2019-02-06 09:20:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 23
Words: 44,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12814458
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emi_lyliz/pseuds/emi_lyliz
Summary: Serving as my idea for a thirteenth season,thirteencovers the aftermath of "All Along the Watchtower," including Castiel's return, Jack's self-discovery, and the power dynamics in the Alternate Timeline. And no, this isn't just me copying the canon and claiming it as my own.





	1. Lost & Found

**Author's Note:**

> My plan, since I intentionally wrote this to be 23 chapters long (one chapter per episode), is to upload a chapter either the Thursday of or Friday after a newly aired episode. Since I'm currently obviously behind schedule, I will be uploading during winter hiatus, and when the winter premiere airs, there'll be two posts. I'm laying this all out as a means of holding myself accountable.

If one would have asked Dean Winchester in the moment to explain why he was now here, in the Pacific Northwest, with Castiel dead at his feet (or, now, as it stood, his knees, given his kneel) and his mother (alive, mind you—that’s jarring enough in its own right) sealed in an endverse with the Devil in all his brimstone glory, he wouldn’t have felt exceptionally confident explaining how he’d gotten there—or why, or when, or whatever else one might ask to know.

It was a wild ride; that’s what he knew and that’s all he cared to know. One second it seemed like things were (maybe?) looking up for him and Sam. And the next, well, you read it. You know where he is. And he wasn’t in the spirits to “piece together the puzzle,” frankly. He was in the spirits to drink himself dead and kill something/someone else in the process. But the thing is, there wasn’t exactly anyone _to_ kill as far as he knew. His mother was gone, and Lucifer with her; Crowley was equally as dead as Castiel. It was, as it had been from the start, just him and his damned little brother—and Dean already knew he couldn’t take that pawn off the board.

There was, however, someone he’d forgotten about. Or maybe he wanted to will said someone away. One or the other—probably equal parts each. As he heard the door to the house behind him slowly open (it sounded rather unsettling), he, shakily, got to his feet and inclined his head, still trying to square himself on the offensive. Muster up any remaining dignity (and/or power) he had.

Sam emerged from within the house, oddly steady given circumstances. And, wouldn’t fate have it, he was accompanied.

Dean had known of Kelly’s birth. He knew Lucifer’s son was in his vicinity. That said, he was still floored to see him— _him_ , Jack, in all his adolescent man’s glory. It appeared he’d skipped a few stages of early development. Dean had prepared to see his brother cradling the Devil’s spawn in his arms, not walking out tailed by a young man a good two-thirds his height (and probably his age too).

His eyes narrowed as they approached. He must have opened his mouth, because Sam gave him a shrug the second they stopped in front of him. “I don’t know,” he said, crossing his arms. Dean refused to take his eyes off of Jack while Sam’s dropped to Castiel on the sand, his tattered wings burned into the scenery like some kind of cruel, cosmic joke. Not wanting to dwell on it, what with Jack and his… changes, he cleared his throat and looked back up to Dean. “I figure we take him to the car, go to the bunker, and figure out where the hell to go from there.”

Dean kept his gaze fixated firmly on the kid. If he was tagging along in all this catastrophe (hell, hadn’t he sort of _caused_ at least half of it?), he was going to know damn well how little Dean Winchester trusted him. After all, what would the angel be doing in the outfield had Jack not weaseled his way into the narrative? Still eyeing Jack, he said to Sam, “Sure.”

There was a pause, as if the universe stopped its motion completely for approximately four seconds. None of them—not Dean, not Jack, not Sam, and certainly not Castiel—said a word or, really, did much of anything but gawk at one another. Sam cleared his throat again and, hand on Jack’s shoulder, took the kid to the Impala.

Dean almost followed close behind. Almost.

He couldn’t very well leave Castiel as he was—there was no honor in that, and he refused to let his family go out sans dignity. So he bent over and picked up the body, cradling it in his arms as he’d done Sam what felt like a lifetime ago. _Now_ , he could go—they’d get to the bunker and give the man the proper hunters’ funeral he’d earned. However, halfway to the Impala, he had another urge and, after gently placing the corpse back down in front of him, he ran back to where the wings were scorched and began to thrash and tear at the sand, destroying the image. Retaliation, escape, name it whatever. It felt like it had to be done. And, once they were entirely gone, he dusted his shirt off, turned back around, picked up his fallen comrade, and got his ass to the car.

Dean’s movements from then on were robotic, as if he hadn’t an ounce of control. Carrying the deceased bodies of people close to him seemed to be far too routine, and by then he’d already seen this same person die—how many times had it been? He’d lost track. Needless, it was too damn many, that was sure. Of course, each and every time his friend had returned to them, triumphant, a conqueror of death itself. But Dean (and Sam, for that matter) couldn’t shake just how final this one seemed. After all, God had brought him back each time prior (with the exception of one), and as far as Dean was aware, he was on extended leave. As such, it appeared that this time Castiel’s death might actually stick.

He thought this all over as he opened the back door and gently positioned the body in the seat. Before getting into the driver’s seat, he gave his friend a long stare—maybe too long, he noted, seeing Sam’s evident impatience. He shut the door and climbed into the driver’s seat, not really giving much of a damn whether or not he wore his seatbelt as he sped off towards Kansas at Godspeed.

Sam tried to initiate conversation a few times. It was a futile endeavor, but the silence in the Impala was deafening as all hell, and the drive to the bunker was far too long to stew in it all. And so he tried to eliminate it, even knowing how probably volatile his brother was in the moment. He felt like he was walking on eggshells the whole time, but he did it anyway, as they passed a sign informing them they were sixty miles from Boise, Idaho.

“We’re going to have to talk about all this sometime, you know.”

That was it; his grand opening line. It was up to Dean’s interpretation now.

“What is there to talk about?”

Sam half-turned, raising an eyebrow at both passengers in the back seat, rolling his eyes, and returning to his original position. “Mom. Lucifer. Crowley. The k—Jack. Cast—”

“If you finish, I swear to you I will pull this car over and punch you.”

Sam pursed his lips. “Don’t be like that.”

“I’ll be whatever way I damn well please, thank you. Stop it already. We’re not going to _talk_ about anything. We’re going to take Cas—” He cut off abruptly, unable to finish. Collecting himself, he resumed in a lower voice, a more deliberate one. “We’re going to take Cas home and give him what he deserves.”

Sam inclined his chin. “What do you mean?”

“A hunters’ funeral, Sam. He’s earned it, wouldn’t you say? So we’re going to get his ass back home, put him to rest, and then I’m going to get so black-out drunk I start seeing four of him. That’s it. There’s nothing to discuss about it.”

“Are you sure about that?”

“About what?”

“A hunters’ funeral is… pretty final.”

“So is being murdered.”

“You know that’s a lie; he’s come back before.”

“Yeah, well, God’s on sabbatical, remember? Don’t see him working any miracles any time soon. Besides, whenever Chuck _did_ bring him back, he wasn’t taking his sweet time about it. If Cas were coming back, he’d have done it already.”

“Cas?” the brothers heard from behind them. Sam turned back around to see Jack looking between the two of them with eyes wide open. He couldn’t tell if they were scared, curious, or dangerous. “As in… Castiel?”

“That’d be him,” Dean replied bleakly, gesturing back with his head towards Cas. “What’s it to you, Damien?”

“Jack.”

“ _Jack_.”

Jack seemed to curl into himself, taking in the sight beside him. “And he is…?”

“If you say ‘dead,’ I swear to you I will pull this car over and punch you. And Sam, for good measure.”

“Yes,” Sam said, ignoring his brother and talking directly to Jack. “He’s… indisposed.”

“I warned you,” Dean growled, taking the nearest exit and pulling into a parking lot. He stopped the car jerkily, forcefully, glaring his brother down.

Sam rolled his eyes. “We both know you’re not—what the _hell_ , Dean?” Sam was taken aback as his brother’s fist met his face mid-thought, knocking him forward against the dashboard.

“I told you I’d punch you if you said it.”

“Well, I didn’t say it.”

“Right. Because ‘indisposed’ isn’t the same as ‘dead.’”

Sam sighed. “You can’t keep this up, you know. You’re running on adrenaline.”

“I live my entire _life_ running on adrenaline, Sam. I’ve already told you what’s going on. Don’t recall giving you permission to do anything about it.”

“Yeah, well, we’re still pretty far away from Kansas. So at some point we need to talk about _something_. If not Cas, then something else. Like freeing mom, or—”

“Mom’s dead.”

“You don’t know that.”

Dean scoffed. “I do. Lucifer would have been pissed realizing we trapped him. And mom would have been the closest person. If I’m the goddamn Devil, I know what I’m doing in that situation.”

“Fine. Then what about…” He nodded his head toward Jack.

“What about him?”

“What’s the plan? We can’t very well set him loose on the world.”

“See, I actually agree with you there.”

“Until we know he’s ready for it.”

“And now you’ve lost me.”

“How?”

“I lied to you. The first thing we do when we get home is find a way to slaughter the Devil’s spawn. _Then_ we give Castiel his hunters’ funeral. And _then_ I drink myself to death.”

“We’re not killing him.”

“Like hell we’re not.”

“Dean. He’s a _kid_.”

“Yeah. A kid Lucifer created. So, an evil kid.”

“We’re not killing a kid, Dean.”

“You want me to wait? Fine. Then we lock him in the dungeon until he turns twenty-one, and _then_ we slaughter him. Hell, he’s already, what? At least seventeen? I can wait four years.”

“You’re not doing that either.”

“Like hell I’m not.”

Dean knew what Sam was doing—projecting, as he was so apt to do. He saw a little bit of himself in that kid, so, of course, he wanted nothing more than to protect him, nurture him, think of the bigger picture. Dean couldn’t think that way. All he saw in Jack was an outlet, an opportunity. He could shoot that. That was a problem he could deal with. Everything else wasn’t that concrete.

“You said I am Lucifer’s kid?” Jack asked.

Dean kept his eyes on Sam. “I’m not engaging it in small talk.”

Sam rolled his. “Yes,” he replied to Jack. “You are. Your father—he’s Lucifer.”

“That is… not true. I am not sure where you got that information.”

“Genetics,” Dean replied gruffly.

“No, my father is… well, right here, next to me. But he…” He paused and looked up at Sam. “Castiel is indisposed.”

“The next person that says that is getting shot in the head.”

And, with the silence back in full effect, they made it back to the bunker, where Sam took Jack inside and sent him off to a room while Dean immediately headed to the same locale they’d used for Charlie’s funeral years back. Seemed fitting. Burned one family member here—why not keep adding on? He couldn’t bring himself to stand alone there for too long, though. Despite being years ago, the wound left from Charlie’s dying was still so raw and fresh in his psyche; he couldn’t allow himself to stand and feel those emotions—what if Sam had shown up and noticed his distress? No, Dean wasn’t about to let something like that happen. That wound, and now the newer wounds too—their effects on him were his burden and his alone, and he’d damn himself a thousand times before opening them up and letting them bleed for his brother.

Instead, he began digging for materials to create a pyre. Sam had not come back out yet, so it was still just Dean alone with his mind—and his mind was good at wandering. As he searched for firewood, he noticed a tree that had fallen down flanked by two that were slightly tilted off-center. He couldn’t help but find it symbolic in a way, a natural representation of himself, Sam, and not just Cas, but everyone—Mary, Eileen, Charlie, Kevin. Bobby. Jo. Ellen. John. Hell, Meg. Maybe—just maybe—even Crowley. There were dozens of names to plaster onto that tree. And, wouldn’t it be, that just off to the side from the tree on the left stood a sapling.

Dean knelt over the dead tree in the center. His actions were deliberate, pulling a pocket knife from his jacket and beginning to carve the names into the tree.

 _Castiel._  
_Mary Winchester._  
_John Winchester._  
_Bobby Singer._  
_Charlie Bradbury._  
_Kevin Tran._  
_Eileen Leahy._  
_Jo Harvelle._  
_Ellen Harvelle._  
_Rufus Turner._  
_Benny Lafitte._  
_Jessica Moore._ (For his brother).  
_Pamela Barnes._  
_Ash._  
_Frank Devereaux._  
_Adam Milligan._  
_Henry Winchester._  
_Victor Henriksen._  
_Gabriel._  
_Kelly Kline._  
_Rowena MacLeod._  
_Crowley._  
_Meg._

Dean took a step back from the tree and examined his work. Hearing footsteps behind him, he cleared his throat, stashed the knife, and began working on collecting firewood again. He, intentionally, failed to bring up the memorial he’d fashioned. He didn’t even turn to face his brother; he opted instead to keep the distance and get this all over with as quickly as it had begun.

He and Sam got to work building the pyre after they’d gathered plenty of materials, but neither spoke to the other—Dean for lack of desire, Sam for fear of consequence. Once it was nearly complete, Dean headed inside, wanting to prepare the body on his own. Slowly, still feeling weighed down by everything that had happened in the last day or two, he left Sam alone with the pyre.

He didn’t want to just use whatever he saw lying around. This funeral was for Castiel. It seemed unjust to grab the first linens in sight and call it a done deal. He wanted something with significance. Settling on what to use, he grabbed some rope and the bed sheet in the room Mary had used during her time at the bunker and then headed back out to the Impala and opened the door, cringing slightly as Castiel’s body collapsed into his arms, frozen. His breath shuddering, he gently put the body on the ground, eyeing it over for a few seconds before, very meticulously, wrapping his friend with the linens and carrying him over to their pyre, cradling him in his arms like he had at the house in North Cove, and placing him on top. He took a few steps back and assumed a position next to Sam.

“This is it,” Dean said as he pulled a lighter from his jacket.

“What?” Sam asked, watching his brother ignite the flame.

“Team Free Will,” he replied, setting the pyre ablaze.


	2. The Rising Son

Dean hadn’t killed Jack. Yet.

Of course, it wasn’t for lack of desire or trying. He’d tried a thousand ways over the course of a week, but nothing seemed to do the trick. Ruby’s knife, angel blade, fire—whatever he had at his disposal. The kid was seemingly indestructible. So, he decided, if the thing wouldn’t _die_ , “I guess he can stay around. But he’s not leaving the bunker. I’m not about to let the son of Satan wreak havoc on the public.”

“So he’s a prisoner?” Sam scoffed, his arms crossed.

“Basically.”

“Dean, that’s unjust and you know it.”

“He’s Lucifer’s son, Sam. It’s just.”

“We can’t just lock him up and call it a day.”

“Sure we can.”

“Or, I don’t know—we could give him a shot instead of jumping to conclusions.”

“What part of ‘spawn of Satan’ escapes your understanding?”

“You know, Cas had faith in the kid. Aren’t you doing wrong by his memory acting like this?”

“Go to Hell.”

That was the end of that conversation. Sam had opted to not argue further. At least Jack would be _alive_. Besides, he thought to justify locking Jack up, Castiel had wanted the kid to be protected, had he not? Where could possibly be safer than a top-secret, high-security Men of Letters bunker? If anything, he was doing pretty much exactly what Cas would have wanted. At least, that’s what he told himself. Castiel was also about freewill. Something told Sam that his fallen friend wouldn’t _actually_ approve of the idea, but he decided to shut that voice out.

Dean, after inclining his chin and snarling in his brother’s direction for a good ten seconds, pushed by him and immediately went to his bedroom. His motions robotic, he retrieved his headset from the nightstand and began trying to tune out his own resentment. Still, he couldn’t shake how angry he was, as a general rule. Angry at Jack for being born. Angry at Lucifer for killing Castiel. Angry at Sam for using his death as a cheap argument. Angry at Castiel for dying. Just—very angry.

Jack, in the meanwhile, had taken it upon himself to wander the walls of the bunker. Though he hadn’t been informed it’d serve as his (potentially permanent) jail, he didn’t have much desire to leave anyway. The place was unlike anything—and he knew that much despite only being alive roughly nine days. The only impulse he had was to ingest as many of its secrets as possible—for better or for worse. Where better to end up after being put in such a position as he was than a bunker full of all the world’s answers at the turn of a page?

As he found his way to the library, where Sam was still standing after arguing with his brother, Jack hesitated to enter, seeing the younger Winchester.

Sam noticed and waved him in. “Dean’s not here, Jack,” he said calmly. “And I’m not going to hurt you. You can come in; it’s fine.”

Still apprehensive, Jack nodded slowly and entered the room, keeping his eyes on Sam and his head above parallel, his hands held up defensively in front of him. Noting how Sam was standing not offensively, but passively, he lowered his hands as he drew nearer, but kept himself tense, ready to run should Sam decide otherwise.

“How do I know?” he asked. “Your brother tried to kill me. Multiple times.”

“Dean’s… I’m not like Dean.”

“I do not know that. _You_ do not know that.”

“I just want to talk, Jack. That’s all.”

Jack still looked distrusting, but he relaxed himself enough to accept a seat in front of Sam at the table. “What did I _do_?” he asked. “Why does he want me dead?”

“You didn’t do anything. He’s just—give him time, please. He’s going through a bit of a rough spot right now.” He paused and let out a deep breath. “We all are.”

“Castiel?”

“Part of it, yeah. But that’s enough about our problems for right now. What about you, Jack? What do you know about yourself?”

“Not a lot.”

“That’s fine. Just give me whatever you can.”

Jack looked about as if searching for physical words. “My name is Jack. My father is Cast—Lucifer. My father is Lucifer. I am nine days, sixteen hours, and forty-seven minutes old. And, apparently, I cannot be killed.”

Sam was nodding gently as Jack spoke. “Is that everything?”

“That is everything.”

“Okay. Well, that’s something. Your mother—do you know who she is?”

Jack took a deep breath, searching his mind. Finding her name, he nodded. “Kelly Kline.”

“Right. So you know your last name too. Kline. Your name is Jack Kline.”

“Jack Kline. Son of Kelly Kline and Ca— _Lucifer_.”

Sam let himself smile slightly. “Correct. And my name? Do you know that?”

Jack nodded again. “Samuel. Winchester. And your brother is Dean.”

“It’s just Sam, actually.”

“Sam.”

“Yeah, that’s it.”

“How did you get to me, Sam?”

“Castiel.”

“Of course. You and Dean were talking about him in the car a few days ago.”

“Right.”

“And you were what to him?”

“He was… like family to us.”

Jack raised an inquisitive eyebrow. “Meaning what?”

“Well, we weren’t related. We were just friends—very, incredibly close friends. Been through a lot together, the three of us.”

Jack looked away and crossed his arms, leaning back into his chair. “And what happened to him? Why is he… indisposed?”

“He was murdered.”

“How? Why? Who did that to him?”

Sam sighed, resigning himself to the idea of recounting his friend’s demise. “Lucifer—your father—he and Cas never got along very well. And so when we, the three of us, made a move against him, he retaliated. He stabbed Cas through the back with an angel blade. And that was, well… _that_.”

“My father did this?”

“You have to understand, Jack—your father is…”

“He’s an unrivaled dickhead who deserves nothing less than to be shoved back into the cage he crawled out of,” Dean interrupted, still fuming as he assumed a seat next to his brother.

“To put it bluntly,” Sam replied, rolling his eyes.

“So what does that make me?”

“It makes you a problem,” Dean answered, cold.

Jack kept his eyes on Sam, trying to avoid Dean. However, he felt the need to say, “I do not like you. You tried to kill me.”

“Damn straight,” Dean scoffed. “Because I’m the only one here with any capacity for rational thinking. It’s basic science—Lucifer’s your father, and Lucifer’s the literal Devil. Don’t take a genius to know where that puts you.”

“If you came in here to derail the conversation, you’re welcome to leave,” Sam told Dean. “He still has a chance.”

“Like hell.”

“Think about it—he _chosekid_ ,” Sam scoffed. “Of course he doesn’t know everything.”

Dean turned to Jack. “You’re how old?”

“Nine days, sixteen hours, and fifty-six minutes.”

He looked back to Sam. “Kid’s not even ten _days_ old, and you’re having a full conversation with him and you think normal ‘baby rules’ still apply?”

Sam rolled his eyes and turned back to Jack. “Angels—they were created by God. They’re powerful.”

“They’re also assholes,” Dean interjected.

“Cas was an angel,” Sam told Jack. He looked at Dean. “He wasn’t an asshole.”

“Well, he’s dead. So they’re all assholes now.”

Sam put his head in his hands for a few seconds before clearing his throat and returning his attention to the Nephilim. “Your father—Lucifer—he was a step higher, an archangel. I think God described them as the ‘stuff of primordial Creation.’ Basically, Castiel was powerful, but Lucifer had him beat.”

“Is that how he killed him, then?”

“In a way, I guess. But anyone could have killed an angel the way Lucifer did. Hell, Dean and I own an angel blade. Every angel carries one. They’re not uncommon. And they’re just about the only way to kill an angel—permanently. There are other ways, but that’s the main one.”

“Okay. And so what about Lucifer? Why did no one use it on him?”

“Because to kill an archangel you need an archangel’s blade. Which we do not have.”

“I see. And what about me? Why did the blade not kill me?”

“Because you—well, honestly, we don’t know for sure. You’re not exactly pure angel—or archangel. You’re still half-human, so you have a soul. It’s why you’re more powerful than any angel or any archangel.”

“My father and Castiel had no soul?”

“Only humans do. Castiel would have had one at one time—when he was human. But before he died he became an angel again, so he didn’t have one when he died.”

“What happens when an angel dies, then?”

“No one knows,” Sam admitted.

“No one but Castiel. And the other dead angels.”

“Pretty much.”

“And what about souls? What happened to my mother when she died?”

“Her soul would have gone to Heaven. Don’t worry about Kelly; she’s in a much better place now. She’s happy. For eternity.”

“Okay, Father Samuel, that’s enough religion for one day,” Dean interjected. “Ask him what all of us know you want to.”

Sam sighed, but deigned himself to oblige. “Can you bring back Castiel?”

“I do not know.”

“What can you do, Jack?”

“Apparently, almost anything, according to you two. But I do not know how.”

“Before you were born you helped Castiel kill Dagon—Prince of Hell Dagon. Do you remember that?”

Jack nodded.

“And after that, not too long before your mother went into labor, you opened a rift in time—a portal to a new dimension. Do you remember that?”

“Yes.”

“And do you know how—or why—that happened?”

“The rift? I do not. But Dagon… she was a threat. To me, to my mother. To Castiel.”

“Okay, well, that’s a start.”

“There is—well, it might not be that relevant, but I can hear the voices. And they are so _loud_ , Sam. Jarring. They sound… panicked. Angry? Desperate? I cannot tell the difference. But I want nothing more than to shut them off.”

“Voices?” Dean asked, now more interested. He looked to Sam again. “Kid’s hearing _voices_ now.”

“Do you know where they come from? What they’re saying?” Sam asked, still collected.

Jack shook his head. “They talk about Castiel a lot.”

“Angel radio?” Dean asked with a shrug. “Cas’ name always got a lot of airplay.”

“What else, Jack?” Sam prompted, going off his brother’s hunch.

“Me,” Jack replied, his voice shuddering a bit—the first display of emotion the brothers could really detect. “They talk about me. And Lucifer. And you two also. They do not seem very fond of you—of any of us.”

“Sounds like those winged douchebags,” Dean commented.

“What did I do to them?” Jack asked, looking back and forth between the brothers.

“Same thing you did to us. Your father was Lucifer,” Dean answered.

“I did not choose that.”

“Doesn’t matter.”

“Surely if we tell them I chose Castiel they would stand down?”

“Highly doubt it. Hell, might even put you higher on their Wanted List. The angels weren’t too fond of him towards the end there.”

Jack looked to his hands. “They are… their voices are so piercing.”

“Jack,” Sam began. “Do you know how your powers work—at all?”

“I know they work when I am afraid.”

“That’s true—lights went batshit first time I tried to kill him,” Dean attested.

“Right. They work when I am threatened.”

Meanwhile, in the Alternate Timeline, a leader was reigning, destroying the planet as he basked in Apocalyptic glory. Michael, the victor—after slaying his degenerate brother—had one goal in mind, and it wasn’t, as the angels in Sam and Dean’s timeline had always promised, Paradise. It was utter control, command over his absentee father’s Creation. And, now that he had lead Heaven to victory—with the assistance of his second, the alternate Castiel, as it would be—that dream was set to be a reality.


	3. Patience

Michael had believed Castiel—the one he knew, of course, as Sam and Dean’s was obsolete—had been facetious, joking around about Lucifer’s resurrection. He, naturally, had not.

“Jofiel saw him with his own… well, with his vessel’s eyes,” Castiel (who will henceforth be known as Castiel~ to distinguish between the characters between the two timelines) insisted. “Lucifer, your brother—God’s favorite. He’s returned.”

“Lucifer was never Dad’s favorite,” Michael scoffed. “And Jofiel can’t be trusted. He told Sophia that Gabriel was planning a revolt against Heaven, remember? And look how that ended up for the lot of them—Gabriel and Sophia are dead and Jofiel is an outcast. And say nothing of how he corrupted Farrah. His word means nothing.”

“Then take mine, Michael. Mine must count for something.”

“You seem to be too caught up defending Jofiel to know how utterly ridiculous you sound right now, Castiel~. Get it together. We’re on the verge of, well… replacing our Father. We could have it _all_ , don’t you get it? Don’t waste your shot on Jofiel, of all angels.”

“To be fair, my liege, Jofiel _was_ right about Gabriel. His death was a necessity to get you where you are now, and Sophia’s was simply collateral damage. It’s not Jofiel’s fault she went off on her own against an archangel. He just pointed her in the right direction.”

“Unless I see my brother with my own eyes, Lucifer isn’t alive.”

Just as Michael said that, the pair of them heard the rest of the angels’ flurry of rumors across angel radio (Jack, in the Winchesters’ timeline, heard as well, but kept quiet about it).

“Lucifer has risen,” Jobah announced.

“Lucifer is come,” Azrael affirmed.

“Lucifer has returned,” Hael beckoned.

“It seems Jofiel’s words are getting mileage,” Castiel~ told Michael, his arms crossed. “Are you sure you don’t want anyone to check in on it—at the least? We can send a lower-tier angel—Constantine, if she ever decides to show up, or Efram, or, hell, why not send Hannah? She knows what she’s doing. Someone needs to ease the angels’ worries, or they might start questioning you—if it’s not overstepping my bounds to say. And if the rumors turn out to be true, wouldn’t you want something done about him as efficiently as possible? It seems foolish to ignore something like this. If Christ can be resurrected, why not a fallen brother?”

“You know what?” Michael said, thinking over his options. “You’re right. You’re always right. Where would I be without you, brother?”

Castiel~ gave his commander a small smirk. “God only knows.”

“I will send someone out immediately.”

“Wonderful. For whom would you like me to send, Michael? You have your choice of anyone in Heaven.”

“Isn’t it obvious, Castiel~?”

Castiel~ tilted his head, narrowing his eyes. “What do you mean, brother?”

“I don’t need you to send for anyone. If you’re so hellbent on this being looked into, you’ll do it your damn self.”

“And what, may I ask, will you do without a second while I’m gone?”

“There’s always Hester.”

Castiel~ snarled at the name. Hester had always been a rival of his. The thought of her assuming his post was abhorrent.

“Best be on your way. Quicker you get back, quicker she’s out of your job.”

With a wave of Michael’s hand, Castiel~ found himself grounded, in the thick of the post-Apocalyptic War for the World between Heaven and Hell. He looked about. He hadn’t touched down in… he’d lost track of the years. Since before his promotion, that’s for damn sure. It wasn’t everyday a high-profile angel such as he was sent to the frontlines.

As he made his way around, looking for signs of a disturbance—on a biblical scale—he came across Jofiel, stashed away as usual, surrounded by the rest of his Garrison. The pack of angels were all clearly on the defensive. Farrah stood at the vanguard, holding two angel blades in her hands. Her vessel was the physically strongest of the seven, and she herself had always been good with combat. She knew who Castiel~ was, and she, perpetually skeptical of the high-ranking angels, glared at him, but dared not make a move. Behind her, Xavier, Ion, Rachel, Daniel, and Gloria were crouched down, enclosing Jofiel. Each had his or her own angel blade. The Garrison was preparing for an outside attack.

“State your business,” Castiel~ commanded.

“Castiel~,” Jofiel said, his voice shaky. “Michael sent his right-hand all the way to Earth?”

“You’ve made some serious claims,” Castiel~ replied, tense. “Someone needed to look into it.”

“Lucifer, you mean?” Rachel asked. She was timid, refusing to look Castiel~ in the eyes.

He nodded. “Lucifer,” he confirmed. “Michael said you couldn’t be trusted, Jofiel. I insisted otherwise.”

“And Michael thinks you— _you_ , nothing more than an assistant—could do anything about _Lucifer_?” Farrah scoffed. “Castiel~, you couldn’t take him in your dreams.”

“You forget I’m highly-qualified, Farrah. Did you not serve in my Garrison just a few short centuries ago?”

“I did. But we never took on the Devil himself. You’re outgunned here, Cassie~. You couldn’t scratch his paint job.”

“Well, we’ll just have to see about that, won’t we, Farrah?” he snarled. “Didn’t Michael tell you that if you continued to question my authority—or his—you’d face consequences upstairs?”

“Yes.”

“Whose side are you on, Farrah?”

“The side that keeps me alive, Castiel~.”

“And you think Michael isn’t doing his best to prevent as many angel casualties as possible?”

“I think that since yesterday alone, fourteen angels perished in a war Michael started and refuses to do anything about. Uriel, Mirabel, Akobel, Esper, Constantine, Conrad, Inias, Ingrid, Hozai, Nathaniel, Oren, Purah, Theo, Ishim. All of them—dead. And Michael couldn’t even deign to acknowledge them. So no, Castiel~, I do not.”

Castiel~ sighed. “Well, your personal feelings aside, Farrah, you need to mind your tongue. Michael has no room for disobedience amongst our kind. You know where that got Ezra.”

Farrah did not reply. Instead, she continued to glare at him while Jofiel engaged him. “We are glad you came down, Castiel~,” he said, calmer now. “Farrah is… she is simply enthusiastic. Please forgive her. She holds no malintent, I assure you.”

“Absolutely,” Farrah said, her voice low.

“I’m not here for her,” Castiel~ replied.

“Yes, yes. Lucifer. I’ve said all I know, Castiel~. I wish I could be of more service,” Jofiel sighed. “Ion and I saw him a few days ago, and we’ve been on the lookout with the Garrison ever since. Nothing’s come of it as of yet.”

“You can be of service, Jofiel. All of you can. Scour the planet—thoroughly. Report back to me if you find anything.”

“And what will you be doing in all this time, choirboy?” Farrah taunted.

“Same as you, Farrah. Searching. Michael has cast me out until my task is completed. I intend to return as promptly as I can.”

“So predictable. He holding Hester’s promotion over you, too?”

Castiel~ didn’t answer.

“Michael needs to get a new playbook,” Farrah sighed.

“Be on your ways,” Castiel~ commanded, his temper being tested.

With that, the Garrison fled, each angel heading in a different direction. As the only way left was northwest, that is where Castiel~ went.

As he wandered about in search of the Devil, Castiel~ had time to think over things—things in Heaven, things on Earth, Michael as a general rule. He wouldn’t have admitted it if asked, but, after what Farrah had said about their fallen comrades, he, too, was beginning to doubt Michael’s motives. Was he committed to angels, or was he simply committed to his own personal gain? When Castiel~ had enlisted, had clawed his way to being Michael’s wingman, he had been so sure it was the former. But now he was beginning to believe Michael to be more corrupt than he’d let on.

Damn politics.

Castiel~ banished the thoughts from his mind. Michael was just; the planet was consumed by catastrophic, biblical war, and Farrah expected one archangel to be able to handle it on his own? Preposterous.

He heard footsteps behind him, and, dropping his own angel blade from his sleeve, whisked himself around to confront them. However, he could see no one.

“I know you’re out there,” Castiel~ called. “It’s better for both of us if you reveal yourself immediately.”

He received no reply.

“I’ll introduce myself,” he said, continuing to try and either taunt or coax his pursuant into the open. “My name is Castiel~. I serve under Michael—the victor, Michael. I can connect you to the current King of Heaven; you’d have to be out of your mind to try to make a move against me. Now, reveal yourself.”

“My brother sent the Winchesters’ pet to do his dirty work?” the other person scoffed. Castiel~ still could not see anyone, but could now identify his pursuant as an angel in a male vessel.

“You’re an angel?”

“I’m so much more than that.”

Castiel~ froze. “Jofiel?”

“He should have told you lot I was in play by now.”

His suspicion confirmed, Castiel~ mounted his offensive, sending a signal directly up to Michael. “The rumor is true,” was all it said.

“I have to say, Castiel~, I am surprised.”

“Why is that?”

“Well, I just thought news I was lurking about would be enough to get my dear brother down here in person. Not his dog.”

“I am not his pet, Lucifer.”

“Sure you aren’t.”

“I am his second-in-command,” Castiel~ boasted.

“Is that what he’s told you?” Lucifer scoffed. “Castiel~, I know my brother better than you do, so listen very carefully when I tell you that Michael does not care about you.”

“You’re wrong.”

“If I were wrong, he wouldn’t have sent you to your death.”

“He didn’t.”

“Angels. So insanely, masochistically obedient.”

“Most of us, anyway.”

Lucifer smirked, finally stepping out of the shadows. “Did you miss me, little brother?”

Up in Heaven’s control center, Michael received his second’s transmission. “Hester,” he beckoned. She arrived within the minute, eager to please. “Fetch Jofiel for me.”

“And Castiel~?”

“Not yet. I need someone I can trust keeping tabs on my brother until I know how he got here.”

“What about Jofiel’s Garrison? They’ve all been missing from Heaven for weeks, you know. I understand Farrah has been cast out, but the others have not. Surely you want their obedience.”

Michael sighed, but nodded anyway. “Of course. Send for them too. But, above all else, I need to talk with Jofiel. After all, he was the one that started all this.”

“Right away, sir.”

With that, she was gone, on Earth not too far from where Castiel~ had landed earlier. She sent him a signal, resigning herself to needing to work alongside her competitor. However, annoyed as she was, she knew it was for the good of her people. From where she stood, taking down Lucifer (again) was infinitely more important than taking down Castiel~ (for once).

His reply came in as she was pacing mindlessly in the spot where she’d spawned. Getting from it his location, she flew there and landed beside him in a second’s time.

“Lucifer,” she growled upon seeing him. “I have to admit, Heaven was surprised to hear you were back.”

Lucifer said nothing. In fact, he kept eyeing Castiel~, not even bothering to acknowledge Hester.

As such, she spoke louder. “Michael defeated you once before, Lucifer. He can do it again.”

Again, no response.

She rolled her eyes, accepting the fact that Lucifer would not engage in her mudslinging, and instead directed her attention to Castiel~. “You’ve seen Jofiel, I presume.”

He nodded. “We spoke.”

“And his Garrison?”

“They were present. Mostly they remained silent. Except, of course, Farrah.”

“Isn’t she due punishment then?”

“She got lucky. With Lucifer back, Michael has more pressing matters than a simple, low-tier angel getting feisty.”

“Point taken.”

There was a lull in the conversation. The two were equally uncomfortable acting cordial with one another, but they both knew it was in the best interests of Michael, Heaven, and themselves to keep their personal reservations to themselves.

“Would you mind telling me where they went?” she asked, her words somewhat quick. “Michael has requested a word with Jofiel, and he wants the rest of his Garrison returned to Heaven. All but Farrah, of course. Her banishment still holds. The others are unaccounted for, and, with times as they are, it’s become all-hands-on-deck in Heaven, as I’m sure you’re well aware.”

He nodded. “They each went off in different directions, so I cannot be positive where they are. Jofiel took the north, Farrah the south, Rachel the west, Xavier the east. Ion went to… Ion went to the northeast, Daniel the southeast, and Gloria the southwest.”

“Thank you, Castiel~.”

“What does Michael want done with me, Hester?”

“What do you mean, Castiel~?”

“My task was to confirm Jofiel’s rumor. I did that. Should I follow to Heaven?”

“No, Castiel~.”

“Why?” He was taken aback.

“Michael wants someone in his close circle to keep tabs on his brother. He said he trusted you to do the job.”

“If it’s Michael’s will, it’s my command.”

“That’s a good soldier, Cassie~,” Lucifer interjected. “You were always so well-behaved for Sam and Dean. Figures the same should apply to my older brother.”

Hester and Castiel~ narrowed their eyes, furrowing their brows as they looked over to Lucifer. “Sam and Dean?” she asked. “As in Winchester? The ones Heaven decided against?”

“The products of John and Mary Winchester,” Castiel~ added.

“The very ones,” Lucifer affirmed. “Alternate realities, crazy aunt, cage in Hell, it’s a whole story. I’ll spare you both the details for now.”

Hester tensed. “I don’t have time for this.”

“Go,” Castiel~ told her. “Do what Michael asked of you. Find Jofiel and his Garrison.”

“I don’t like where this story is headed. I mean, if big brother already took me down in this timeline, then where’s the fun in doing it again? I say ‘fuck the rerun’—let’s kick this up a notch,” Lucifer said through his excited smirk.

“You couldn’t defeat him before, Lucifer. You won’t be any more successful this time,” Hester insisted.

“You, darling, are infuriating,” Lucifer sighed. With a snap of his fingers, she disintegrated before his and Castiel’s~ eyes.

Castiel~ felt his vessel tense.

“Now,” Lucifer transitioned. “How about you take me to that brother of mine?”


	4. The Big Empty

Castiel, this being the one the Winchesters remembered—the dead one, regained consciousness in a vast, deep, dark nothing. No matter which way he faced, it was all the same—pitch black and featureless, cold and unsettling, empty. He’d been here before, a few times now.

Usually there was someone with him, but he had never been able to make his company out. This time, however, it seemed different; it seemed to Castiel that the place was more empty than he’d remembered. He called out to the void, hoping maybe he wasn’t on his lonesome there, wherever that should be, but he received no reply. Thusly, he could preoccupy himself entirely with one goal and one goal only: get the hell out, and do it alone this time around.

He couldn’t imagine how Sam and Dean would be holding up without him.

§§§

Dean and Sam were out on a hunt as their friend, unbeknownst to them of course, had this revelation. They had, as per Sam’s request, brought Jack along with them, much to the displeasure of Dean who continued to voice his disapproval nearly every chance he had.

As they drove through town—Maryville, New Hampshire, where restless souls were rampant in an abandoned home (the Gordon House, as it was known locally) and taking pleasure in murdering and abducting young couples—they talked over Jack’s role in the ordeal. There were three distinct sides: Jack’s, asserting he should be utilized to his full potential, whatever that should imply; Sam’s, positing that Jack, being a variable, should be subdued slightly but still allowed participation; and Dean’s, avowing, emphatically and predictably so, that Jack should never have come in the first place.

“He should have stayed home, Sam,” Dean said. “We should have left him there.”

“So you said. Four times,” Sam sighed. “But he’s here. And besides, we’re already in New Hampshire. Not like we can just turn back now.”

“I bet the little bastard could teleport his half-feathered ass to Kansas,” Dean asserted.

“Yeah, maybe. If he knew how.”

Dean rolled his eyes. “It’s not my fault he’s having system malfunctions. But hey—maybe that’s a good thing.”

“Why do you say that?” Jack interjected. “Would I not be more useful to you at full power?”

“If you had control over them, possibly. And if I trusted you.”

“I do not want to harm anyone, Dean,” Jack insisted. “You have my motives wrong.”

“Oh, honey, I knew your father. I have your motives just fine.”

“You understand _Lucifer’s_ motives, and perhaps what he would have wanted mine to be. You do not, however, actually comprehend mine.”

“So philosophical,” Dean taunted. “Jack, decades doing this job has taught me one valuable lesson: to trust my gut. And right now my gut says Satan’s spawn is not a positive.”

“Your instinct is flawed.”

“I’d trust my instinct over your word, flawed or otherwise.”

“You are too obstinate, Dean Winchester. I am simpler than you think. I wish no one harm; I just want to rescue my father.”

“See, now that’s where we have a problem.”

“No—not Lucifer. He is nothing but blood to me. I want to rescue my _father_ , Castiel.”

“Dead angels don’t have a habit of resurrecting.”

“Dean, we’ve been over this. Cas has literally come back from the dead at least five times since we met him,” Sam added.

“Yeah, well, we didn’t burn his remains then, either.”

“And I told you not to this time, but you went ahead and did it anyway.”

“Right. Because every time God or Chuck or whatever the hell he goes by now decided he wanted to bring Cas back, he was pretty fucking quick about it. If he cared enough to bring him back this time, he’d have done something about it by now—before we had the chance to burn his bones.”

“Whatever you say, Dean. We’re not here because of Jack anyway. Ghost hunt, remember?”

Dean rolled his eyes. “I remember.”

“Ghost hunt?” Jack asked, his eyes wide.

“Absolutely not,” Dean said, firm. “Even if I thought you weren’t going to screw the planet, you look way too young. You’d get all of us arrested, and the job would never get done. You’re staying back, end of story.”

“What _can_ I do, then?” he asked, sitting straighter. “I want to help.”

“I’m sure you do,” Dean responded flippantly.

“You’re too dismissive, Dean,” Sam criticized.

“And you’re too trusting. Looks like we’re both flawed.”

Sam rolled his eyes. Ignoring his brother, save for that initial reaction, he turned back to Jack. “Look, I’m sure there’s something for you,” he said coolly. “I just don’t know what. Dean’s got a point here—until we figure out everything about you and your powers, it’s too much of a wildcard right now to just throw you out into a hunt and assume it’ll go fine. _But_ , we can start you off easy, what do you say? Nothing too… demanding. We need to identify all the names of the people that have died there and find their graves—which you can help with, obviously. That’s just research. And after that, we need to torch the bones. When we start doing that, odds are, things will get ugly inside. One of us will take the House, and you can help the other burn remains. Sound like a plan?”

Jack nodded.

“Then it’s settled,” Sam affirmed, looking back at Dean. “He’s helping—it’s two to one. Democracy in action.”

If he hadn’t been driving, Dean’s head would have been in his hands the second Sam offered Jack a task. But, seeing as there was progressively less he could do to stop them, he sighed and caved. “Fine. The kid can burn some bones. But that’s _it_. I don’t want him getting too involved or getting ideas or getting his hands dirty. God knows what happens if he decides causing death is fun.”

“Ever the optimist,” Sam sneered.

Dean smirked as he pulled into a space out front of the first motel in town, the Royal Jane Inn.

§§§

Meanwhile, with Castiel and his perpetual void, he began contemplating things, as he was apt to do. Besides, what else was he supposed to do alone, with only himself and literal nothingness.

He’d seen this place before, as aforementioned, and, as he recalled, each time was following a death of some ilk. The only time he’d been killed off where he hadn’t made his way here was when he was human, where he’d instead gone to Heaven—to his eternal surprise. He distinctly remembered the first time he’d been here, after he’d taken on Raphael solo to allow the Winchesters an opportunity to prevent the Apocalypse about… how long had that been? Nearing a decade now? It was a short-lived trip, of course. God had reinstated him among the living rather promptly. But he was still here. And so, he deduced, it was here that he—just he, not all angels or it’d be otherwise populated—was sent in death. Of course, he had to consider, if he was still conscious, if he still had a memory, was he actually dead? Or was it just that he was… out of reach? Ripped from one dimension and thrown into a new one? Jack, he recalled, had been able to open a rift between time and space, so clearly such a thing existed as otherworldly dimensions. In that case, it didn’t seem too farfetched to him to consider that maybe an angel never actually _dies_ in the traditional sense of the term. Hey—souls don’t, after all.

This further fueled his mission to escape. If he was, indeed, still living, as he clearly was given he was having thoughts at all, then there had to be some type of way to hop between dimensions. How he’d manage it he had yet to figure out, but knowing there was even the slightest chance he’d be able to swing it was enough to motivate him. If it meant a triumphant return to the Winchesters (what was it Dean called the trio? Team Free Will?), then why the hell not try?

In the midst of all this, he couldn’t help but have a few negative thoughts, which were all promptly shouldered. It seemed unnecessarily cruel to him that God would simply send his creations off to their own entirely isolated voids for eternity if they were “killed,” but that, as he knew, wasn’t his call to make. Maybe there was a justification for it, but he couldn’t come up with one on his own. The main concern he had surrounding this idea was that, maybe, if the point was for his island dimension to be his afterlife—his final, infinite “resting place”—it might just be that there wasn’t a way out. After all, God hadn’t made Heaven exceptionally easy to just go in and out of at whim—or Hell, or Purgatory, for that matter—so why would he make it simple for an angel to escape his or her afterlife, as monotonous as it may or may not have been. Still, he shouldered it, honest-to-God blocked it from his mind. He needed to focus on his escape if it were to become a reality. After all, he was completely alone and he had absolutely nothing to work with but his own mind and his own ability. He couldn’t afford to lose sight of his goal.

§§§

Jack, meanwhile, was thoroughly entertained by the idea of “research.” Though he held the physique of a young adult, he still was but an infant, and, thusly so, was curious about everything the world had answers too—and even more so things it did not.

Dean was off on his own, sitting on his bed and focusing solely on his laptop, ignoring Sam and Jack the best he could. Across the room, the pair sat at a circular table, Jack leaning inwards slightly to allow him to see the screen, and shared Sam’s laptop, where Sam was teaching Jack just how exactly to find information with such a device.

“What I’m doing now is hacking into local police servers,” Sam explained. “I’m looking for some information on people who would have passed away in that house.” He looked up at Jack to make sure the kid was still following. Seeing him eyeing the screen intently, Sam continued. “Dean’s, so you know, looking for the names of all the couples that have vanished over the last few years. Since we’re not sure what’s going on, it’s possible some of those people could still be alive.”

“Okay,” Jack said with a nod. “So then what happens?”

“Depends on what Dean finds. If there are witnesses, we break out the suits and interview them. If not, we keep looking online for where the remains of the spirits are.”

“There is someone alive, by the way,” Dean said. “Jeanine and Lloyd Crandel. Both fifty-seven. They live a couple miles outside of town.”

“Great,” Sam responded. He stood up, and Jack followed his lead. “I’ll go get the suits, and we’ll go talk to them.”

“I got it, Sam,” Dean assured. “You and Damien keep playing detective.”

“My name is Jack.”

“I’ll call you whatever I damn well please,” Dean scoffed. “I’ll take it, Sam.”

Sam sighed. “Fine,” he conceded. He turned back to his laptop and sat down, as did Jack. “Let’s keep digging, then,” he said.

They found a total of nine names, looking as far back in time as the database allowed. “What now?” Jack asked, his mind whirring with wonder.

“We wait for Dean to get back, see what he found out, and then we go deal with this thing,” Sam replied coolly.

It hadn’t taken them too terribly long to search the entirety of the database, so they had a decently long wait until Dean returned. The Crandels, as it turned out, were exceptionally talkative, so they kept him a good while longer than he’d wanted.

“God, we haven’t been to Maryville since...” Jeanine paused as she searched for the date. “Must be about forty years now.”

“Right,” Dean said with a curt nod. “When you were ‘kidnapped by the residents of 1754 Cherryhome Drive,’” he added for her, quoting what had been Lloyd’s statement in the article.

“Exactly,” she confirmed. “We won’t be forgetting that anytime soon.”

“But why is the FBI looking into this now?” Lloyd interjected. “That was forty years ago. Those people would be in their nineties at the youngest. Hell, the local police closed the investigation.”

“You must not keep up with the news in Maryville,” Dean replied. “More couples have gone missing. It’s beginning to look cyclic, and the FBI decided it’s become… our jurisdiction.”

“Oh, God,” Jeanine gasped. “Well, whatever you need to know, Agent. It’s our honor to help a federal investigation.”

“And it’s our civil duty to help anyone that’s in danger there,” Lloyd added. “I hate to think of someone else having our experience.”

“Right, well, your compliance is appreciated,” Dean said, stiff. “But would you care to elaborate on that experience for me?”

“Of course,” she said.

And thus began Dean’s descent into intensive, consuming boredom. The story itself wasn’t exceptionally terrible—it was, after all, related to his line of work—and he managed to pay attention to the couple’s dreadful back-and-forth style of narration enough to get the important details. But they added more embellishment than he cared to listen to, and so he mostly tuned them out.

He did, however, catch them mentioning “a basement full of corpses—all of them with name tags,” as Lloyd had detailed.

Dean inclined his chin. That could be of use to him and Sam.

After they finally wrapped up their paranormal story, Dean nodded to each and, getting from Lloyd a firm handshake and from Jeanine an (unwelcome) embrace, he made his way back to the motel. Jack and Sam had, in his absence, turned the TV on and made some low-quality microwave popcorn they’d picked up at the grocery store down the road. They’d been channel-surfing to some degree, but when Dean walked in they were both fixated on an old episode of “The Twilight Zone,” a show that, despite acclaim, had always rubbed him the wrong way. Dean had never been a fan of entertainment centered on his work—especially when the narrative was driven by misconception.

“Alright,” he said, putting his luggage down. “Off your asses. I got everything.”

Sam inclined his head. “Really?”

Dean nodded curtly. “Lloyd’s description was vivid.”

“Where are the bodies?”

“In the basement. Naturally.”

Sam rolled his eyes. “Naturally,” he sighed. He had rather hoped the corpses would be outside the House so they could get Jack involved without him being in the thick of things.

“So—you had a game plan, did you not?”

“Not really,” Sam scoffed. “I had maybe the beginning of one.”

“Kid burns some bodies; we kick some ghosts’ asses. Sounds like a game plan to me.”

And, because they hadn’t a better option, that’s what they went with. Sure, Sam’s original plan was for one of the brothers to hang back and lend Jack a hand, but they decided it was unnecessary considering both his chaperones would be in the same exact house as he would. Instead, they would get him downstairs, where he was to uncover the remains and set them ablaze while Sam and Dean took care of anyone that tried to get in their ways.

They departed from the Royal Jane two minutes to midnight, taking winding dirt roads as opposed to the straight-shot through town center. The street was lined on either side with dense forest, as was the Gordon House, which sat squarely at the end of a path through the trees where a small clearing had been made to allow for the House and its yards. It seemed to be shrouded in perpetual silver fog.

Pulling the Impala up as far down as the path would allow, before getting too narrow, they arrived at their destination. Dean cleared his throat as he put the car in park and opened his door, followed shortly by Sam and Jack. He nudged Jack’s door shut slightly as he passed it, not feeling inclined to step out of its way, and opened the trunk.

Jack had never seen what it was, precisely, that Sam and Dean lugged around in their massive trunk everywhere they went, so when Dean revealed it, he tensed himself. It was a right arsenal—firearms, biblical weapons in spades, blades, lions, and tigers, and bears (oh, my).

He said nothing, standing back and watching as Sam and Dean retrieved, for themselves, shotguns and, for Jack, a lighter, a container full of salt, and a canister of gasoline. Sam handed the items off to Jack who took them, but slowly.

“You have the easy part,” Dean said once Sam had stepped back. “Douse the bones in gas, cover them in salt, and light them up. Ain’t rocket science. Capisce?”

Jack nodded and, trying to make himself tougher, raised his chin and his posture. Despite adding a good inch to his height in doing so, he still barely reached Dean’s neck. As such, Dean patted his head and gave him a condescending, “Nice try, kid,” before nodding to Sam and heading off towards the House.

Sam hung back, engaging Jack in conversation on the trek up the path.

“What are you going to do while I burn the bodies?” Jack asked, curiously eyeing Sam’s weapon.

“Distract,” Sam replied curtly. “Keep the ghosts from finding you.”

“And a shotgun can do that?”

“Not usually,” Sam said with a small laugh.

Jack narrowed his eyes, which asked his question for him.

“These ones can. They’re full of rock salt.”

Jack looked at the rock salt he was carrying. “And that works?”

“That and iron. It’s like their kryptonite.”

Jack had no reply but visible confusion.

Sam scoffed, though not to patronize. “Never mind,” he said. “It’s their weakness.”

Jack nodded.

§§§

As Jack, Sam, and Dean geared up to check the Gordon House off the list, Castiel was still drawing blanks as he tried to work a way out of his prison. Given there was nothing there save for him, and given he, himself, wasn’t even at full power, he was beginning to realize his plan may just be impossible. It was looking like an outside force was required to break him out, which, again, he felt was somewhat needlessly cruel on God’s end.

§§§

As Castiel thought things through, Dean and Sam were upstairs in the Gordon House, firing rapidly as ghosts came from all angles. An entire shelf collapsed when the pair shot in its direction simultaneously, shattering tens of ceramic teacups that sent shards every which way. A spirit crashed the windows open, allowing strong winds to pull debris in from the outside. It was a mess of visual clutter in the upstairs, but they held their ground nonetheless.

Jack, in the meanwhile, was in the basement, rapidly digging for the bodies Lloyd had sworn were there. He was beginning to get disheartened, finding no sight of them. However, as he was prepared to give up, a wall crashed down behind him.

In the same instant, Castiel heard a piercing screech in his dimension, though it sounded distant and faint.

Jack approached the rubble hesitantly, stopping dead in his tracks as he noticed the cavity the wall had been hiding was filled to the brim with human remains—all labelled with nametags, as Dean said they would be sometime along the drive there. He took in a deep breath as he advanced. Pausing to look them over for a hot second, he stood in front of the bodies. His repose was interrupted when he heard a crash upstairs (Sam and Dean had been thrown to opposite walls), which told him his timeframe was narrowing. He cleared his throat and, just like Dean had instructed, began to throw gasoline and rock salt over the bones en masse. He pulled the lighter from his back pocket, but struggled to produce a flame. He’d never been taught to use a lighter, so the technology was foreign. Still, even when he’d figured out how it should work, he couldn’t get anything stable going.

He could hear Sam and Dean’s battle upstairs, including the pair calling down to him to hurry his ass up. So, fruitlessly, he continued trying to ignite the fire.

At this point, the screech Castiel heard was growing steadily louder.

Upstairs, the ghost of a young woman plunged her talon-like nails into Dean’s shoulder. Jack could hear the agony from downstairs, so he continued trying to figure out the lighter, though with more haste, feeling his blood boil. A moment later, the woman’s counterpart wrapped his hands around Sam’s throat, letting out an earsplitting cry of victory as the Winchester fought to escape. He let go, watching triumphantly as Sam fell to the floor.

Jack heard the thud of Sam’s body and, now infinitely more scared and angry, unaware of what was happening upstairs, tried harder still to work the lighter. However, as he was about to strike it again, he paused, sensing heat from before him.

The screech was now causing Castiel physical pain.

A fire had lit—on its own, it would appear—and Jack could hear the screams from upstairs as the ghosts began to burn away. He ran upstairs and, seeing Sam and Dean still breathing, he felt his heartrate slow.

The screeching stopped.


	5. Advanced Thanatology

Dean and Sam, panting but alive, looked at each other once the ghosts had gone. “Son of a bitch,” Dean said. “Little bastard came through.”

“Don’t know why you expected otherwise,” Sam replied, utilizing the wall to get himself to his feet. He eyed Dean’s shoulder, which was bleeding profusely. Though he was out of breath still, he was far more concerned about treating Dean’s wound. He called down to Jack to get the kid to come upstairs and sat himself and his brother down on the ground.

Jack arrived upstairs, staring at his hands in awe. “Did it work?” he asked. He looked up to Sam and Dean and noticed the blood. “Is he okay, Sam?”

“I’m fine,” Dean insisted.

“He’ll live,” Sam assured. “We just need to close the wound. There’s some dental floss and needles in the car. Would you mind getting them?”

“Sam, I need you to know something.”

“It can wait, Jack. Whatever it is, I’ll listen, but first we need to suture this.”

“Let me try,” Jack said, walking briskly to the brothers and kneeling before them. He kept eye contact with Sam as he extended his left arm and held his hand over Dean’s shoulder. As he closed his fingers into a fist, the brothers noticed the punctures closing with them. Once the wound was healed, he sat back and pulled the lighter from his pocket. “I could not get it to light,” he admitted, handing it off to Dean as he sat up.

“You did _something_ ,” Dean scoffed, taking his lighter. “They burned.”

“I burned their remains.”

“Without the lighter.”

Jack nodded once. “Yes. I heard what was happening upstairs and—suddenly the bodies were on fire.”

Sam and Dean looked at each other. Sam raised his eyebrow as he looked back to the Nephilim. “Do you know how?”

“No.”

“Fantastic,” Dean commented. “I vote we get back to the bunker before the kid figures it out and lights the rest of Maryville on fire.”

“Cut him some slack,” Sam commanded. “He just saved both of our lives _and_ fixed your shoulder. I think he’s earned some respect.”

“Sure,” Dean replied coldly, getting to his feet and walking out the door without a word of gratitude even crossing his mind.

Sam and Jack rose to their feet together and followed Dean out the door around thirty seconds later. Sam never took his eyes off the kid.

The walk back to the Impala was uneventful, just three boys on a dirt path in New England. However, once they reached the car, as Jack was opening his door on the back driver’s side, he collapsed to his knees as a searing pain burned through his conscious. He held his head in his hands, his elbows resting on his knees.

Sam, who had been returning the shotguns and other assorted equipment to the trunk, dropped what he was holding (some rock salt poured from the canister as it fell on its side) and rushed to Jack’s side. With one hand on Jack’s left knee and the other on his right shoulder, Sam began looking the kid up and down frantically in an effort to evaluate him.

“I can—” Jack tried to say, before breaking off from the pain as his temples began to throb. “Castiel?”

Dean, who was positioned (irritably) in the driver’s seat, became interested the second the name escaped Jack’s mouth. He (even more irritably) got out of the car and stood over the other two, looking down at them with his arms crossed. “What about Cas, Jack?”

“I—” Jack’s body suddenly seized for a brief moment before he returned to normal—as normal as could be when applied to him. His breathing uneven and heavy, he looked back and forth between the Winchesters. “I know where Castiel is.”

“Yeah, so do we,” Dean scoffed. “Dead.”

Jack shook his head and, removing Sam’s hands from him, stood up so he was closer to Dean’s height. “No—no, I saw him. Alive.”

Dean rolled his eyes. “Right,” he replied, dubious. “Look, people see dead people all the damn time. You’re either grieving or Schizophrenic.”

“Neither,” Jack insisted. “I know he is out there, Dean. I saw him.”

“Alright,” Dean said, clearing his throat. “If you ‘saw him,’ then where in hell is he? We _burned_ his remains, Jack; he’s not on Earth.”

“No, you are right—he is not.”

Dean shook his head and let out an annoyed sigh and opened the driver’s door. “Look, I’ve reached my limit today,” he dismissed. “Cut the shtick. What the hell happened, and what the hell does Cas have to do with it?”

“I—well, I do not know what happened, Dean,” Jack admitted. “But I know it was Castiel. It had to have been. I _saw_ him, Dean. And he saw me.”

Dean looked to his brother, who had gotten back around to the passenger’s door after Jack stood up. “Kid’s insane,” he said.

Sam, though equally as confused and doubtful as his brother, propped himself up against the Impala and looked Jack dead in the eyes, though cautiously and gently where Dean had been confrontational. “Jack, what do you _think_ happened?”

Jack shrugged. “I think he was reaching out to me.”

“That’s exactly what psychotic Christian serial killers say when they’re convicted,” Dean scoffed. “‘Jesus said he was a sinner!’ Cut me a break, Jack.”

“I know he was. He saw me, too.”

“This is too much.” With that, Dean slid into the car and put it in drive.

Irritated by his brother, Sam got into his seat and motioned for Jack to follow. However, he refused to drop the subject just because Dean decided to be petulant. “Do you remember how it went, Jack?”

Jack nodded.

“Can you give us a play-by-play, so we can try and figure out what happened?”

He nodded again and took in a deep breath. “It was like I teleported. One second, I was here—at the car with you and Dean. And next, I was with Castiel.”

“Where’s that, now?” Dean interrupted.

“I do not know,” Jack replied, tense. “But it was… cold. Dark. Empty. There was nothing else—no one else, but Castiel and I.

“He was just… standing there. I am not sure what I _expected_ him to be doing, but it was still kind of strange. And he was facing the other way, but I said his name and he turned around to face me. It looked like he was about to say something back, but that is when I was snapped back here.”

“That is strange,” Sam admitted. “Damn it,” he sighed. “I have absolutely no idea.”

Jack looked to his lap. “I know it was real, though. It was too vivid not to have been. And wherever he is… it is _miserable_. I want to bring him here.”

“So do we,” Sam replied coolly. “But, Jack, we don’t know how to do that.”

“Clearly I can get to and from his… wherever he is, right? Maybe he can hitch a ride.”

“That’s… ambitious.”

“Resurrection sounds like it calls for ambitious,” Jack scoffed. He sat slightly less turgidly. “Look, I do not know how to do it either. And I understand about as much as the two of you do. But wherever he is… it is not a pleasant place. It is—”

“Cold. And dark. And empty,” Dean interrupted, finishing Jack’s thoughts for him. “You covered that already.”

“And you _do_ know that those are all _negative_ adjectives, yes?” Jack taunted, snarling in Dean’s direction.

“I’m not a dumbass.”

“Then why is it so hard to fathom I would want to save him?”

“Because it’s like me having a dream about Sam being in danger and then waking up feeling like I need to save him. It’s not _real_ , you poor, stupid son of a bitch.”

“I _know_ it was real,” Jack insisted. “I _felt_ it, Dean. I felt the… vastness. The void. It is not a feeling I could have fabricated.”

“The imagination is wild.”

“You are too pessimistic. How is it so hard to believe that maybe there is a chance of bringing back Castiel—your companion, my father, Castiel?”

“Remember what I said earlier about my gut?”

“Yes. And I remember what I said back, but you refused to listen to me then as well.”

“Right, well, if something sounds too good to be true, then it is. Bringing back Cas, for example. Great in theory. Not actually possible.”

“Maybe not for _you_ ,” Jack scoffed. “But I know what I am. You two told me. You said I have power. I can do this.”

“You don’t even know how to teleport on _Earth_ , Jack—in _our_ dimension.”

“I got there once, did I not? I can do it again.”

Dean rolled his eyes.

Jack scowled at Dean, drilling holes into the back of his head as they drove home in relative silence.

He wanted—needed—to prove himself to Dean, and he knew bringing back Castiel was just the way to do it. Plus, he’d wanted nothing more the whole time he’d been conscious than to speak with his father, to experience his father’s presence. This was his shot. He was going to make it work, no matter the cost or the challenge.

If he could do it once, he could do it twice—at least that’s what he continued to tell himself during the ride home. He was focusing in on Castiel with all his mind and his heart, trying to zero in on where he was, trying to return there to break him out.

It was futile for the most part. Nothing was happening, and for a brief second he began to think that perhaps Dean was right—Castiel had been nothing more than a mirage, a young boy’s desperate cry for affection. However, as they crossed the border into Indiana, Jack felt his eyelids snap shut and, inside, saw a message burned in gold.

_I know you were here._  
_SOS_  
_—Castiel_


	6. Tombstone

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "What?
> 
> A new ~~chapter~~ episode of _thirteen_? But it's Monday?"
> 
> I know.
> 
> _But_ I'm headed out of the country Wednesday, so I won't be here Thursday/Friday to update. And I need tomorrow and Wednesday open. _So_ , happy Chrysler, y'all.

Farrah had given up scouring the earth for Lucifer about as quickly as she’d been made to do it. The second she turned and noticed Castiel~ was no longer in her presence, she had called it a day. She hadn’t taken orders well under Michael’s regime in the past. Why start now?

However, since she was isolated in the desolate, barren wasteland her brothers and sisters in Michael’s battalion called a planet worth fighting for, she continued to wander. None of it was new sights, of course. She’d been evicted from Heaven not too long after Michael took the reigns, which was a solid few years ago. Since then, she’d been all across the globe. There wasn’t a Wonder of the World she hadn’t visited at least thrice nor a landmark of any kind she hadn’t seen twice.

Also familiar to her was solitude. Banishment from Heaven didn’t come without its price. Angels actively avoided her, and it wasn’t as if she could turn to companions of other species—given the bloody war on Earth, angels weren’t exactly in high standing with anyone but other angels. So, as a means of preservation, she’d kept herself isolated. It wasn’t until she caught wind that her Garrison, the one she’d served up until her last moment in Heaven, had touched down that she found company. She had forgotten, in that time, how exhausting others could be.

She noticed a stone on the ground and began to kick it around mindlessly, recalling her Greatest Hits—from her own biased angle, naturally.

When she used to serve under Castiel~, she had already gained her reputation for disobedience. Given angels’ commitment to unfaltering servitude, it didn’t take much for her name to get around. Snide comment here, out-of-turn backtalk there. Nothing too crazy.

While she wasn’t exceptionally fazed by her removal from Heaven, she still thought, after all the years she’d been exiled, that it was unjustly done. Castiel~ had sold her out, after all.

She remembered it being just after Michael had assumed the helm. Angels were, as they were so apt, vying like mad for his approval—Castiel~ included. Of course, she hadn’t been, and, of course, Michael noticed as much. He, subsequently, began to favor her. “We could use angels with a little more fire than feather,” he’d told her. She hated Michael with everything she had, but that comment had stuck with her through the years. And so, she was quickly rising ranks—and the other, more obedient angels were not oblivious. Or pleased.

In retaliation, a few of them—Castiel~ and Hester at the vanguard—had plotted a way to take her down a few pegs, to where they felt her rightful place was. They’d intentionally had a particularly important Heavenly command be misdirected, so when she carried it out it seemed she was incompetent and unfit for office.

She, as she had understood it, was to monitor for suspicious activity on Earth and report to Michael’s messenger—who she had been told was Jofiel that week (as Michael had always liked to switch them out periodically to keep classified information out of harm’s way should an enemy capture one of his prior envois). And when she’d picked up whisperings that Gabriel was less than thrilled by Michael’s infant reign and was, allegedly, forming his own counter-movement, she immediately brought it to Jofiel’s attention. In turn, he told it to his close friend, Sophia, who then went out on a mission to neutralize the threat. She had. But she perished in the process, and the blood was then traced back to Farrah’s hand. When confronted by Michael, she told her story—exactly as she knew it—and he grounded her for insubordination. And here she was, years later, still serving that sentence.

She held none of it against Jofiel. He’d been unwitting, believing Farrah had just been gossiping with him like the other angels did on occasion. And, generally speaking, she was over the resentment. However, there was just enough fury in her to maintain her grudge against Castiel~ and Hester as long as they were around to face it.

She rolled her eyes, now agitated somewhat by the memory. She kicked the rock at her feet with more power and it flew from her, landing a good football-field’s distance from her. It satisfied her to watch it soar through the sky.

As she was looking at the projectile, she could hear approaching footsteps. Her vessel’s muscles tensed, and her right hand went reflexively for the angel blade in her jacket. Her knuckles were white with how tightly she clung to the handle.

She saw in her peripheral two shadows, growing taller as they walked toward her. She held herself turgid, staring straight ahead of her instead of turning to face them. Her chin was sharply poised above parallel.

She could now see their shadows clearly out of the corners of her eyes. They belonged to grown men, that much she knew. She could also tell they each carried a firearm and approached her almost as stiffly as she stood.

One of them stepped behind her, positioning one man on either side of her. She kept her posture, remaining still until one of them initiated interaction. She’d play it by ear, starting off on their terms and ending on hers.

The man on her left, quickly, dropped his rifle and pulled an angel blade from his jacket. She held her ground.

He held it to her throat, still not standing in front of her. She held her ground.

He leaned into her ear, disconcertingly close. She held her ground.

With a tone that was less than welcoming, he asked her, “Who are you?” She couldn’t make out whether he was growling or his voice was simply that husky. Still, she held her ground and said nothing.

He repeated himself. “Who are you?” She held her ground.

He pushed the blade into her skin just enough to draw blood. She could feel her grace ebbing in the wound. The light was now casting a blue-white haze in the lower half of her vision. She held her ground.

He now, finally, stepped in front of her. He was an older man draped in flannel and old denim. His breath and clothes smelled of cheap alcohol.

There was a pause. The men now knew she was an angel; she now had him in her field of view. Knowing he could see her face, she smirked and, rapidly, reached her right hand up and put two fingers to the other man’s forehead. She didn’t look over to him, but she heard his body fall to the ground. Now that she’d created a diversion, she took the opportunity—the split moment when the man in front of her had his eyes on his comrade and not her—to take her own blade out and hold it to him, twisting his left wrist so he dropped his blade to the ground with a piercing clang, the only sound for miles. Still, to her surprise, he asked (just as forcefully), “Who are you?”

Now that she had them both where she wanted, she felt secure enough to answer. “Farrah,” she said, her voice low and rigid.

He said nothing to her. The pair stared at one another for a good twelve seconds before she, slowly and delicately, removed the blade from against his throat. Apparently, this move had caught him off-guard. He furrowed his brows, narrowing his eyes into confused slits. “I’m not looking for trouble,” she all but hissed. “But if you so much as think about getting your weapons, you’ll be dead before you hit the ground.”

He was still visibly fuming, but he obliged, giving her a nod.

She looked him up and down and said, “Hunter?”

He nodded slowly.

She scoffed. “Didn’t realize you people were so in over your heads.”

He was evidently trying to keep face, but she could tell she’d hit a nerve given the facial expression.

“Bringing a _firearm_ to an angel,” she clarified. “You know those don’t work, right?” She looked down for a second to where his blade had fallen. Looking back up to him and refusing to take her eyes from him, she knelt down and picked it up for herself. “How did you get this?” she asked once she was fully upright.

“Guess we’re not as ‘in over our heads’ as you think.” That was his response in its entirety.

She smirked. “Clever,” she granted. “Who are you?” The role reversal was not lost on her.

“Hunters,” he replied, clearly finding himself witty.

“Names,” she demanded. “You got mine. Tell me yours.” She ran her fingers over his blade. “I could force it from you, but I said I wanted to keep this civil.”

He was glaring at her, but he still obliged. “Singer and Turner.”

“Surnames?”

He gave her a sharp nod.

“Who’s who?”

“Singer,” he said, gesturing to himself. “Turner,” he added with a nod to his accomplice.

“And you’re both, what? Just out on a casual Sunday afternoon angel hunt?”

He shrugged. “Got anything better for us to do, tree topper?”

“Slurs are hardly civil, Singer.”

“You’re holding two weapons. Blades are hardly civil, angel.”

“Farrah.”

“Angel.”

“You say that with contempt.”

“Damn straight,” he scoffed. “You seen how the planet’s gotten since you winged assholes took over? You ain’t doing a good job.”

“If it’s Command Center you have a problem with, you’ve reached the wrong representative, Mr. Singer.”

He arched an eyebrow.

She rolled her eyes and put the blades carefully on the ground at her feet. When she was fully standing again, she lifted her shirt to show him the left side of her midriff. On it was an Enochian sigil carved into her skin, flecks of blue light from her grace still glittering in an outline around the red wound. “I’m branded,” she said simply, putting her shirt down.

“Means nothing to me, I’m afraid.”

“I’m banished,” she clarified. “Cast out. Kicked out. Cut off. Exiled. Whatever you want to call it. Heaven doesn’t want me. Said I was ‘insubordinate.’”

He narrowed his eyes. “Why are you telling me this?”

She grabbed his shirt collar and pulled him in. They were so close their chests touched. “Because if there’s an alliance forming against Heaven, I want in.”

He scoffed and pushed her away. “Like hell,” he said. He sounded almost amused. “Look, great story and all, but we’re not looking to add a halo to our circle. Defeats the purpose.”

She rolled her eyes. “Hunters. So short-sighted,” she demeaned. “You do what you want—it’s your initiative. But know I could be of nothing but use to you.”

He scoffed again.

“Think for a second, Singer. I’m cut off from Heaven, not communication. Whenever Michael sends anything out to all of the angels, guess who gets to hear it too?”

It looked like his expression was softening, but she was not positive.

“Plus, there’s the power boost,” she added with a shrug. “I can fly—quick communication. And one more thing.”

“What is it?”

“I was nearly Michael’s right-hand woman,” she boasted. “I know his playbook like the back of my vessel’s hand. And he’s not exactly prone to variation.”

He pursed his lips, and she could tell he was considering her offer.

“Look at us now, Singer. Communicating. _Talking_. Both of us unarmed. I held that blade to your throat, don’t forget. If I had malintent, you’d be dead by now. And your friend will be awake in, oh… forty seconds, give or take.”

He sighed.

Forty-three seconds of silence passed and Turner’s eyes flitted open. Singer reached out his hand to help his partner to his feet. Instantly upon seeing Farrah still before them, Turner came on the offensive. He was prepared to reach down and grab a blade from their feet, but Singer, to Farrah’s surprise, stopped him.

“What the hell, Bobby?” he growled, quiet. She could tell he’d intended it to be inaudible to her, so she said nothing. She simply watched their interactions unfold.

Bobby (Singer) didn’t reply, so instead she spoke in his place. She extended a hand to him. “Farrah,” she introduced.

Turner refused to accept her gesture.

She rolled her eyes and pulled her hand back in. “Rude, the lot of you,” she said coldly.

Turner kept his glare.

“Look, I’ve already gone over all of this with Singer here, so if we could fast-forward through the recap, I’d highly appreciate it.”

Turner didn’t budge, so Farrah turned back to Bobby. “Do we have a deal or not, Singer? Like I said, I’m not here to cause trouble. With _your_ people, anyway.”

Turner scoffed before Singer could respond.

She rolled her eyes and, irritably, showed him the mark on her side. “It’s a brand. Means I didn’t make the cut. Heaven gave me the boot. I have a grudge. There you go—that’s the abridged version. Will you stop acting so petulant now?”

He pursed his lips.

“Good,” she said shortly. “Look at us. No weapons, just communication. Cooperation.”

Turner scoffed again.

“If you insist on killing the vibe every time there’s progress, so help me God…” she began, before realizing her civility was leaving her. She brushed herself off, physically and metaphorically, and cleared her throat. “I’m not complicated. Michael banished me from Heaven _years_ ago. I’ve been without allies before, and it’s not the most settling circumstance. We can all be of mutual benefit.”

Turner and Singer looked to one another, Turner evidently not buying in and Singer evidently buying in.

“I implore you to keep those options open, gentlemen.” She kicked the blades at her feet in their direction. “I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again—I didn’t come to hurt any of you. The only thing I care about is giving Heaven the makeover it so desperately deserves.”


	7. War of the Worlds

Castiel~ was staring down Lucifer with the fury of a thousand suns. Last time their father had been equally agitated, Noah was on the arc.

He had, as mentioned, begun to doubt Heaven’s fearless commander after what Farrah had said. After all, though he hated to admit it, she hadn’t been wrong. Hell, he worked directly alongside Michael and hadn’t heard Constantine was dead (no wonder she’d seemed to have gone missing) until Farrah told him about it not too long ago. And if something of this scale—the deaths of fourteen angels, their brothers and sisters—could happen under Michael’s watch without him batting an eye, what else could he be hiding from Heaven—from Castiel~?

He inclined his chin, folding his arms across his chest and shifting his weight to his left foot. “Why should I take you there?” he asked, pursing his lips. “Can’t you get there your damn self?”

Lucifer scowled now, his smug expression shifting to irritated.

Castiel~ smirked now. “I see. You _can’t_. Michael cut you off, didn’t he? Can’t get in unless he wants you to.”

Lucifer’s eyes glowed a threatening, unsettling red.

“What’s the matter, Luci?”

“Nothing’s the matter,” Lucifer insisted. “I’m just thinking about how fun it’d be to tie you up by the halo and deep fry you in holy fire.”

“As fun as that sounds, I’d advise against it.”

“Oh, really?”

Castiel~ nodded. “You need me if you want to get anywhere with this rematch with Michael, brother.”

Lucifer scoffed. “ _You_?” he said with a chuckle. “You and your delusions of grandeur? We’ve covered this, Castiel~. Your ego’s too big for your standing.”

“Is that so?”

“‘Tis so.”

Castiel~ now smiled, feeling triumphant holding his own at match with Lucifer. “How do you plan to get into Heaven, then?”

Lucifer had no response, but the scowl had returned.

Castiel~ sighed, bemused. “I told you you’d need me.”

Lucifer rolled his eyes.

“Still, why should I help _you_? You rebelled. That’s insubordination. I can hardly _look_ at Farrah after what she did, and you expect me to help you when you made her look like the perfect soldier? Your punishment suited the crime, I’m afraid, Lucifer. If you want a servant, I’d suggest Farrah—you two have a lot in common. But, then again, you couldn’t get very far with her either.”

Lucifer appeared arms’ length from Castiel~, his breathing heavy and angered.

Castiel~ was enjoying himself more than he would have admitted.

“Look, I just don’t see how my taking you to Heaven is beneficial to anyone but you. I work in upper management, remember? I’m a ‘bigger picture’ kind of angel.”

Lucifer grabbed Castiel~ by the throat so tightly his knuckles were white, his eyes glowing again. “I ought to rip you limb from limb.”

Castiel~ gasped for air but refused to let it slow his momentum. Fighting to speak at all, he said, “If you kill me, you’re _definitely_ not getting there.”

Exasperated, Lucifer dropped his brother and stepped away to a more comfortable distance.

Castiel~ sighed, and he gave Lucifer a nod, deciding to cut the rouse. “I’ll get you in,” he assured. “But if you can’t get in on your own, we might have a problem.”

Lucifer, now noting Castiel’s~ compliance, softened his expression. “Oh?” he replied, raising an eyebrow. “What might that be?”

“If you’re marked, I can’t get you there without Michael’s permission,” Castiel~ informed. “Hurdles he added to prevent… mishaps. Like break-ins. And, knowing Michael, you’re marked.”

“Marked?” Lucifer scoffed.

“Check your torso. You’ll know if it’s there.”

And so Lucifer ripped his shirt off (deciding to make a show rather than simply lifting it up) and began to examine his chest.

Castiel~, to his astonishment, saw no such branding. “That’s impossible,” he said, taking a hesitant step forward. “I _know_ you were black-listed.”

Lucifer narrowed his eyes. “What was it Hester kept insisting? ‘Michael defeated you before, he’ll do it again’?”

Castiel~ nodded, slowly, still eyeing Lucifer’s chest.

“What—exactly—did she mean by ‘defeat,’ Cassie~?”

“She meant—well, I mean, I _watched_ you die, Lucifer,” Castiel~ replied. “You and Michael fought—physically—and he, well, he had a clear advantage, I’ll tell you that much. And you died. Bright light, burnt-out vessel, the whole sha-bang.”

Lucifer’s smug expression returned. “That wasn’t me.”

Castiel~ furrowed his brows.

“Well, I mean, I’m sure it was Lucifer. But it wasn’t _me_ , honey. I’m not from these parts.”

Castiel~ was doubting this story until he recalled one of Lucifer’s off-hand remarks from their original confrontation. “You said something about an alternate reality earlier.”

Lucifer nodded once. “That I did.”

“And the Winchesters—who Raphael had already made _sure_ never saw the light of day.”

“That I did.”

“So then—it’s true?”

“Cassie~, there’s a whole ‘nother world out there the lot of you couldn’t dream of.”

Castiel~ braced himself for what he was prepared to do. He knew it was disobedient—it was _beyond_ disobedient, really—but that was of no import anymore. Lucifer’s case was strong enough, and now he knew for sure the pair could cross the threshold together. Michael’s control of Heaven—and campaign on Earth—had brought nothing but casualty: angel, human, otherwise. Perhaps the fresh pair of eyes (from a “whole ‘nother world” at that!) Lucifer could offer would get their Father’s creation back on its feet, running smoothly again.

He approached Lucifer and put his hand on his shoulder. Before flying them to Headquarters, however, he looked over to his new business partner. “Don’t make me regret this,” he said, his voice stern and cold.

Lucifer simply smiled at him.

Castiel~ rolled his eyes and flew up to Heaven, Lucifer by his side. They landed just outside the entrance to Michael’s office, where Heaven’s Command Center was and where Castiel~ knew Michael would be as well. He looked Lucifer dead in the eyes. “What’s the plan from here?”

“I’m playing it by ear,” Lucifer replied, nonchalant.

“That’s hardly viable.”

Lucifer scoffed. “It’ll be fine,” he replied. “Michael won’t be expecting us.”

Castiel~ pursed his lips and faced the door.

“Unless, of course, you let him know.”

“Excuse me?” Castiel~ asked, taking a step away from Lucifer. “Why would I do that?”

“I thought helping me in was ‘insubordination.’”

“It was.”

“So how do I know you weren’t being insubordinate and Michael didn’t set you up to this?”

“Because he didn’t.”

“Great. Which means I should be able to go in there without trouble. So, no, it’s not the _best_ plan, but it should work out alright.”

Castiel~ sighed again but stuck to the plan. He put his hand on the cold, silver door handle. He was about to open it when Lucifer stopped him.

“What?” he asked, irritable.

“You’re going in first. Get him nice and distracted. The less chances I take, the better. Something goes wrong, I got you covered.”

“Somehow, that’s not comforting.”

Lucifer smirked. “The feeling is mutual then.”

Castiel~ rolled his eyes. He twisted the handle and Lucifer immediately hid, his back pressed against the wall. When Castiel~ disappeared into the room, he pulled the door mostly shut so as to not seem suspicious while making it easier for Lucifer to enter undetected.

Approaching his soon-to-be-former superior, he tensed his muscles and thought over his circumstance once more. Was he—Castiel~, Michael’s _favorite_ —really about to commit treason? Was he—Castiel~, Michael’s _favorite_ —really working with Lucifer, the Devil incarnate?

You’re goddamn right he was.

“Michael,” he said coolly.

Michael arched a brow and turned, now facing the direct opposite direction of the door, to face Castiel~.

“You shouldn’t be up here.”

“I know, Michael. Hester told me what your command was.”

“So then why, exactly, are you up here, Castiel~?”

“Because there’s been… developments. The situation with Lucifer—it’s gotten out of control, brother. And with the War on, it’s become too dangerous for me to say this any way but face-to-face with you. Never know who—what—might be listening, after all.”

Michael narrowed his eyes, distrusting. Still, he prompted his second-in-command to “Go on,” inclining his head.

Lucifer began to slip into the room, his hand wrapped firmly around the handle of his archangel blade. Castiel~ noticed; Michael did not.

“Hester—she’s dead.”

Michael rose to his feet.

Castiel~ felt his vessel quiver. “Lucifer—he… I’m not even sure what he did, actually. But she disintegrated, vaporized completely.”

“And Jofiel’s Garrison?”

“They are in the wind. I’m sure we could locate them, but Hester never did. She came to me to ask for locations and was killed before she had the chance to do anything.”

Michael nodded slowly, gathering his thoughts. He opened his mouth to reply, but was interrupted by Lucifer’s blade piercing through his torso.


	8. The Scorpion and the Frog

Jack was situated in his bedroom in the bunker, trying his damnedest to reconnect with Castiel. Since seeing him in Maryville (and especially since seeing his message near Indianapolis), he’d been dead set on getting himself back there—whatever it took. However, he was finding it difficult to achieve. Through all his targeted prayers, his mind-numbing concentration, his search-and-rescue was going exceptionally poorly.

He was inclined to think maybe Dean was right in diagnosing him insane. Nevertheless, he persevered. He knew what he’d seen, what he’d felt. Dean’s distrust was _Dean’s_ problem, not Jack’s. The only person Jack wanted to worry about was Castiel.

His focus was disrupted as he heard the Winchesters arguing as they walked down the corridor toward Dean’s room, as they were so apt to do. He inclined his chin and listened in. (Given how far they were, their words were strangely clear—a happenstance he attributed to his powers).

“Kid’s been locked in his room all weekend,” Dean said. “Not sure what he’s up to, but I don’t like it.”

“Probably trying to reach Cas.”

“Great. Just what we need—Damien with hallucinations.”

“Cut it out, Dean. He’s only a kid. Besides, he’s done nothing wrong yet. Maybe he’s more human than you give him credit for.”

“He’s half-Satan, Sam.”

“He’s also half-human.”

“We’ve already had this talk. We can’t keep doing this, Sam—acting like the enemy might not be so bad. It’s pretty clear where that kid’s story ends.”

“Haven’t killed him yet.”

“ _Because we can’t_ , Sam. Do you not see how that’s a problem? Kid’s got more power than the Devil himself, and we _can’t do anything about him_.”

“Maybe it’s a sign.”

Dean scoffed. “‘It’s a sign,’ he says. A sign of _what_ , Sam?”

“If you can’t kill him, then give him a chance.”

“Can’t do that.”

“ _Why_ , Dean? We don’t know anything _about_ him—just that he can’t be killed. So if your plan is to kill him, tell me how that’s going for you.”

“So just because we don’t know how to put him down means we get to play house with him? Tell that to Yellow Eyes. Or Lucifer. Or Eve. Or Dick Roman. Or Amara.”

“He _saved_ us, Dean. There’s a whole new set of rules at play here.”

“There ain’t.”

“On what grounds?”

“The grounds that every time I look at the kid all I see is Cas.”

“He had nothing to do with that.”

“ _Sure he did_. Jack _lied_ to him, manipulated him, made him promises he couldn’t deliver on. And Cas believed him—like the naïve little kid he was. And look where he is now, Sam.”

“Apparently, alive.”

“ _He’s dead_. That _freak_ saying he ‘saw him’ doesn’t mean shit all. Like I said earlier, people see other dead people all the damn time.”

“You saw what happened, Dean. No ‘hallucination’ causes a reaction like that.”

“So we _think_ ,” Dean said with a slight laugh. “But he _isn’t human_ , Sam. So sure, you’re right. There _is_ a whole new set of rules here. But that don’t make him good—it just makes him unpredictable. Unpredictable and _powerful_. That’s a bad combination. You’ve been hunting for decades, Sam. Don’t tell me you don’t know how this _inevitably_ plays out. Why are you so _attached_ to him, Sam? Kid got Cas killed, got Kelly killed just by being _born_ , and you want to protect him?”

Jack could now hear their footsteps walking by his door. Their conversation was still very clear, but it was muffled the slightest bit as they continued on their ways. When he could tell they were a good distance from his room, he carefully opened the door and followed them so as to hear the rest of the conversation.

“Maybe I relate to him.”

“Jesus Christ.”

“You can keep telling yourself the two of us are different, but you know we’re not.”

“On what grounds? Kid’s the _son_ of _Satan_.”

“Yeah. And I spent a pretty long time drinking demon blood with Ruby. Doesn’t sound kosher to me.”

“It’s completely different.”

“Dean—did you forget that I literally _have_ demon blood _in_ me?”

“No. But that’s not the same thing.”

“Sure it is. Hell, Dad even _told you_ to _kill me_.”

“Yeah, well, screw Dad. Dad was an ass.”

“He was doing the same thing you are _right now_.”

“No—no, he wasn’t. He was telling his _son_ to kill _his other son_. That’s a bit different than wanting to stop Jack because his _father_ is _Lucifer_.”

“Same motive.”

“You’re impossible. You might be able to get over the fact that if it weren’t for that _kid_ , Cas would still be alive. But I can’t, Sam. I can’t do that to him.”

Sam sighed. The conversation stopped.

They were just outside Dean’s room now, and when Dean turned to head inside, he spotted Jack out of the corner of his eye. He pursed his lips and turned to him, nudging Sam on the shoulder. Sam, too, was now looking at Jack, though with a wildly different expression. Sam’s was sympathetic; Dean’s was hostile. As was the norm.

“Is this a bad time?” Jack asked coolly.

“Yes,” Dean said.

At the same time, Sam had said, “No.”

The brothers looked at each other, mutually irritated.

Jack raised an eyebrow. “There is just… something I thought you should know. But it can wait, if it needs to.”

“It doesn’t,” Sam insisted. “What is it?”

Dean rolled his eyes.

“Castiel, of course.”

“Jesus Christ, not this again,” Dean interjected.

“He left me a message.”

“I can’t deal with this right now,” Dean said, entering his room and closing the door aggressively.

Jack was unperturbed. “On the way back from Maryville. I closed my eyes, and there were words. A note—from Castiel.”

Sam didn’t reply, but his inclining his head prompted Jack to keep talking.

“It said that he had seen me. And it said ‘SOS,’” Jack informed. “And that was it. I have been trying to get back there, but it has not worked yet.”

“You’re sure it’s Cas?”

Jack nodded. “It has to have been. I am connected to him. That is how I helped with Dagon, after all.”

Sam opened the door to Dean’s room.

“Seriously?” Dean growled.

“We have an angel to rescue,” Sam replied, ignoring Dean’s petulance.

Dean rolled his eyes, but, to Sam and Jack’s shock, he said, “ _Fine_. I’ll humor you. But the second this goes wrong, we’re done.”

“Deal,” Jack replied.

Moments later, the trio was at the table in the library, trying to figure out what exactly it was that caused Jack to see Castiel the first time. In order to assess what could be creating the blockage now, they decided to have Jack try and retrace the series of events leading up to his encounter.

“We were leaving the Gordon House… We got to the car. You two were putting away the equipment from the hunt, and I was about to get in the car and—well, that’s when it happened. I grabbed the handle to the Impala, and then I was… wherever the hell he is.”

“Cas used to ride in the back seat all the time,” Dean recalled. “It’s a start, isn’t it?”

“Right—maybe it’s got something to do with… I don’t know, things Cas would have touched?” Sam added.

Jack raised his eyebrows. “Sounds plausible,” he said.

“Follow me,” Dean said. He and Jack both stood up.

As he trailed, Jack noticed Dean was less tense than he normally was around him. He could still sense doubt in the older Winchester’s mind, but it wasn’t as strong. It increased Jack’s confidence by a small margin.

Dean had lead him to a room just down the hall from Jack’s. “Cas used to crash here when he was around,” he said, stiff. “Stay here. There’s something else.”

Jack nodded and stepped into the room. It was bare, save for a few pictures of Team Free Will in its prime—Castiel, Sam, and Dean looking ready to take the world by storm. There was a trench coat hanging on the mirror.

Dean returned with a cassette. Jack tilted his head as he eyed it, curious.

“It was a gift. Gave it to Cas before he—never mind. It has… sentimental value. Should do the trick.”

Jack smiled ever so slightly as he reached out to take the mixtape. The second it touched his skin, he was overcome with the same splitting headache he’d gotten in Maryville. He knew it was only a matter of time before he’d break through to Castiel, so he told Dean, “Get your brother.”

Dean, brows furrowed, left Jack alone as he went to fetch Sam.

Once confident Dean was gone, Jack dashed down the hall to Sam’s room and stole a flannel from his closet, draping himself in it on the way back to Castiel’s.

Finally, once he’d returned to Castiel’s room and began to focus on the angel, Jack felt the ground slipping beneath him as he was transported to Castiel’s damned void. His feet hit the ground(?) hard when he arrived.

At first, it seemed to him like he’d reached the wrong empty. Castiel was nowhere to be found. That was until he said, “Castiel?”

Then, behind him, he heard the flutter of angel’s wings. He turned around, greeted by the sight of his father once again.

“How do you keep doing that?” Castiel asked, his eyes narrow.

“I will explain later,” Jack replied, hasty. “No time to waste.”


	9. The Bad Place

Sam and Dean entered Castiel’s room to find it vacated. They stood, perplexed. The last time Jack had gone to Castiel’s dimension, they had still been able to see him.

They were both slightly on edge, but for differing reasons. Sam was concerned for Jack; Dean was concerned for Castiel. Both had the same logic—if something different was happening this time, what was the outcome going to be?

Sam had thought, maybe, Jack had run off—because of Dean, of course. He believed the whole thing had been a rouse from the start to gain trust and, subsequently, ditch out on the brothers. Dean, on the flip side, thought maybe—just maybe—Jack had been telling the truth the whole time and that this time around he had legitimately _teleported_ to Cas’ little Hell. And that maybe—just maybe—there could be a possibility the pair would return intact. Naturally, this was too much of an optimistic approach, so he felt more so inclined to believe the kid, though he’d gotten there, wouldn’t be able to figure out his way back.

In reality, Dean was more correct. Jack and Castiel stood in the void, physically face-to-face for the first time. And, knowing he didn’t have a fool-proof escape plan settled, he’d taken some preemptive measures. He had donned Sam’s flannel, and he’d been holding Dean’s cassette tape. He figured the combination would be able to get him back to their bunker. After all, items Castiel had interacted with had gotten him to Castiel, so by his logic items Sam and Dean had interacted with should get him to Sam and Dean.

“How do I know you’re real?” Castiel asked, skeptical.

Jack opened his mouth to speak but, instead of giving a verbal answer, decided to toss Castiel Dean’s cassette. “It is from Dean. He said it was sentimental.”

Castiel caught it and, looking at it in his hands, smiled to himself. With a nod, he realized Jack was, in fact, an ally. “Let’s get out of here.”

As Castiel approached Jack, the pair felt the void beginning to quiver. It paralyzed them each for a split second.

“What the hell is happening?” Jack asked, his breath heavy.

Castiel shook his head, looking around though there was nothing to see. “I don’t know,” he replied. He was tense. “Maybe it’s got to do with you.”

“With _me_?”

“Yes,” he affirmed. “I’m not sure, but maybe this place doesn’t like what you’re trying to do.”

“Well, tough,” Jack replied, defiant. “We’re getting _out_ of here.”

The ground they stood on divided the second the sentence was said. From it, a blue light—such as the one an angel’s grace creates—emanated from within. The fissure now began to separate further. With Jack on one side and Castiel on the other, stakes were beginning to rise.

Meanwhile, Sam and Dean were trying to figure out a plan B—or whether a plan B was even viable.

“I mean, if I were Jack, I’d be pretty tired of your shit, Dean,” Sam said with a shrug.

Dean rolled his eyes. “Are we really going to have the same argument?”

“It’s kind of different. You suddenly decided to trust him— _after_ he’s already gone.”

“Yeah, and you decided to abandon him the second he left.”

“Touché.”

“As much as I hate to admit it, I don’t think he was lying here. Kid’s too attached to Cas to use him like that.”

“ _Or_ he knows that _you’re_ so attached to Cas that any chance to get him back is a chance you’ll take.”

“Bite me.”

“I’m just saying, Dean. It ain’t like the kid doesn’t have a reason to bail, right? You haven’t been exactly welcoming.”

Dean opened his mouth to reply, but he was interrupted by a fissure opening in the wall (unbeknownst to them, it was identical to the one splitting Jack and Castiel).

“What in _hell_?” the brothers said in unison.

Dean smirked at his little brother. “I’ll bet the kid comes out of there.”

“Bite me.”

Once the wall split, Jack and Castiel were starting to be able to make out the conversation Sam and Dean were having. Initially, the Winchesters’ voices were muffled and distant, but it took no time before they were crystal clear, as if all four were standing in the room together.

Winds began to pick up, and Jack, taken by surprise, had almost fallen into the chasm between them, which was growing more and more expansive with each passing second.

“What do we do?” Jack yelled across to Castiel.

Castiel shook his head, unsure. He tried to use his newly restored wings to fly across to Jack’s side, but found himself grounded. Instead, trying to come up with a new plan, he tuned into the conversation. He could tell the Winchesters’ voices from anywhere, and hearing them prompted Castiel to suggest that, “Perhaps that divide isn’t a threat, Jack. It might be our way home.”

Jack tilted his head.

“That’s Sam and Dean talking,” Castiel explained. “I wonder if this isn’t the exit.”

Jack took in a deep, slightly shuddering breath. “Are you sure?”

“No,” Castiel admitted. “But do you got a better idea?”

“No,” Jack replied. He tensed himself, looking into the abyss. “But what if you are wrong? Then what happens to us?”

“No idea,” Castiel sighed.

Jack nodded and rolled his eyes. “On three?”

“Sure,” Castiel agreed. “One.”

“Two,” Jack said, bracing himself.

“ _Three_ ,” Castiel finished.

The pair jumped into the fissure, seeing the light around them begin to fade as the opening sealed shut above them.

Twenty-four seconds later, they fell through the wall and into the bunker, landing squarely at Sam and Dean’s feet.

“I told you, Sammy,” Dean boasted.

Sam scoffed as the brothers extended hands to their comrades. Castiel took Dean’s, Jack Sam’s, and they got to their feet.

“You son of a bitch,” Dean said with a broad smile and a slight laugh, taking Castiel in an embrace. “What the _hell_ , Cas? Never do that again.”

“Not planning on it,” Castiel replied. Once he and Dean let go, he shared a handshake with Sam. Taking a step back to place himself in line with Jack, he asked, “What did I miss?”

Sam, Dean, and Jack all exchanged the same look, wondering whether or not to provide all the details or not.

“Not important,” was the response Dean settled on.

Sam and Dean were mesmerized seeing Castiel before them once again, and, frankly, they couldn’t put fingers on why. It wasn’t as if it had never happened before. Hell, the first time he’d died, Raphael had quite literally blown him to pieces. And he’d recovered. A simple angel blade shouldn’t have been enough to put him down for good.

Castiel (and to a lesser extent Jack) was slightly off-balance from the inter-dimensional travel. It wasn’t a journey that had been intended by God to be taken consciously, and, as such, doing that had its drawbacks. Though he’d been recrafted to his mint condition (as a seraph, of course—not a common angel), his powers were on hold for a time until his body could recalibrate. The atmosphere in the void was colossally different than that of his homeland, and he was feeling every ounce of weight the gravity put on his vessel.

He staggered back and fell onto the bed, still sitting, though slouched forward. Jack assumed a seat next to him, and the brothers both stood before them, looking them over.

“You good?” Dean asked, one eyebrow raised.

Castiel nodded. “Fine. Just takes a second to… acclimate.”

“You would know,” Dean scoffed.

“Hilarious,” Castiel snarled, though it was all in good fun.

In the midst of all this, in the Alternate Universe, Castiel~ and Lucifer had, quite literally, stabbed Michael in the back. They’d set the stage to take over Heaven. All they had to do was get themselves organized.

First, they had Public Enemy Number One: Michael, who was still alive (though barely) at Lucifer’s feet. The wound hadn’t been fatal; it had gone through his left side and had grazed his ribcage, but it had, as Lucifer wanted, not actually killed him.

He was hunched over himself, a knot on the ground.

“Look at that,” Lucifer gloated. “The Great Michael. The Victor. Reduced to… _this_.” He put a foot on Michael’s back and pushed, causing his older brother to fall completely to a fetal position now. “How do you feel, brother?”

Michael had no response. What was he to say? He knew Lucifer had claimed victory, and he knew there was nothing—not in the shape he was in—that he could do to reclaim his title, not in that moment. So he, instead, saw no option but to play into Lucifer’s hands. And Castiel’s~, a betrayal which, he had to admit, stung a great deal more than the wound in his flesh.

He used what strength he had to look up to his former second. “Why?” he mouthed, too weakened to produce a sound.

“Akobel, Conrad, Constantine, Esper, Hozai, Ingrid, Inias, Ishim, Mirabel, Nathaniel, Oren, Purah, Theo, Uriel.”

Castiel~ smirked as he saw Michael’s gaze fall.

“I didn’t even _know_ Constantine had died, Michael. You kept insisting she was MIA—nothing more than a deserter. Fourteen angels, Michael. Fourteen. Your Heaven wasn’t working, and the War needed to be won.”

“You’ve been buddying it up with Farrah,” Michael forced himself to say. “And you believe a word she says?”

“Farrah’s unlikeable, not untrustworthy. You, however, have the opposite problem. You had a shot; you failed.”

“Lucifer isn’t going to do any better,” Michael replied. His rage was now fueling his ability to talk. The more Castiel~ explained his insubordination, the more empowered Michael began to feel. The only thought he had was of how satisfying he’d find it when he had the chance and the strength to put both his younger brothers in their places.

“That’s enough drama for today, brother,” Lucifer interjected. He gave Castiel~ a callous, sickening smirk that sent shivers up his spine. “We have a lot of ground to cover, Cassie~.”

Castiel~ inclined his chin and watched idly as Lucifer picked up Michael and set his denigrating body on the desk.


	10. Somewhere Between Heaven and Hell

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two chapters this week, as promised. Reminder: since I'm now caught up to the number of episodes of canon season 13, any hiatuses SPN takes will result in a hiatus on here too.
> 
> And, if you're curious, this chapter isn't titled _Wayward Sisters_ like 13.10 is because that would have made absolutely no sense with the content of this chapter. The only female character in this chapter is Farrah for literally 2 lines of dialogue. Not my idea of _Wayward Sisters_. So, instead, I just lifted a title from a season 12 episode.

Castiel~ eyed his former boss laying helpless and dying on the desk in front of him. He felt a chill pierce down his spine as he wrestled with whether or not the move he was making was, in reality, the right one.

However, as he stared into Michael’s eyes, he couldn’t help but think of Constantine and how he’d swept her death under the rug. He continued to justify his choice. The War needed to be won, and clearly Michael didn’t have it in him. Either that, or he _did_ , but his methodology required volumes of casualties Heaven couldn’t afford, and, in lieu of soldiers, it sustained itself upon a lack of conscience, of humanity. Perhaps it could have won the War eventually, but it was not a sustainable system.

Lucifer was standing next to Castiel~, also looking at his brother. In contrast, his expression was one of pride, not of concession. He had been wanting to achieve this feat for longer than he could remember. Since it hadn’t gone quite accordingly in his _own_ timeline, he was more than thrilled with how the Prize Fight turned out this time. Second chances and whatever else.

Castiel~ looked at Lucifer now, crossing his arms. “What’s the plan?” he asked. “You’re in charge here.”

“Flattering,” Lucifer said through his smug grin. He held up his right hand and clenched it into a fist. At the same time, Castiel~ felt himself slide forward toward Lucifer, who, upon Castiel~ reaching him, grabbed him by the shirt collar. “But you still have a place, Cassie~. I _need_ you.”

Castiel~ scoffed. “Look, thanks for the offer, but I’ve had my share of upper management,” he replied, rolling his eyes and gesturing toward Michael with his head. “Didn’t end up so great. You can take it from here.”

“I _insist_ , Castiel~,” Lucifer purred into Castiel’s~ ear. Again, Castiel~ felt a shiver down his spine. “I’ve only ever presided over Hell, you know. Don’t know the first damned thing about keeping the angels in line. But you—you made a career of it. So, again, I’m going to have to _insist_ you offer me your services the way you did Michael. I assure you, the rewards will not be fleeting.”

Castiel~ sighed, but he nodded anyway. Lucifer, in response, let go of Castiel’s~ shirt collar and began adjusting his own.

“First order of business,” Lucifer said, more poised now. “Michael.”

“What do you want done with him, brother?”

“Whatever you feel like, Castiel~. Be creative.”

Castiel~ smirked and, again, nodded. He turned back to Michael and felt exceptionally powerful looking down at his withering strength.

“How’s it feel, Michael?” he sneered. “I wonder if Constantine felt the same way.”

“Constantine’s death… needed… to be… covered,” Michael snarled. “The angels… were growing suspicious. You don’t understand… what it takes… to… win a War, Castiel~. You don’t… have the guts. Just wait. Lucifer… will lead you… so far astray.”

Castiel~ put a hand to Michael’s mouth. “That’s enough community theatre for one day, Mikey,” he said coolly. “I think we ought to tell the angels just how many deaths you covered up, don’t you?” He felt exceptionally satisfied with the angered look Michael gave him.

As Lucifer began examining the office at Heaven’s Command Center, Castiel~ took it upon himself to drive his point home. He sent out a message to every angel still alive. “Akobel, Conrad, Constantine, Esper, Hester, Hozai, Ingrid, Inias, Ishim, Mirabel, Nathaniel, Oren, Purah, Theo, Uriel. In case you didn’t know, those are the names of all fifteen angels we’ve lost within the last two days alone because of a War Michael—who we had all idolized—started and couldn’t be bothered to finish. The Heaven you’ve served is corrupt; the Victor was never going to be our Savior, brothers and sisters. He brought nothing but deception and casualty. But that all changes now. Heaven has a new commander-in-chief, and, with him at the helm, we can claim the glory we used to know. We can end the War. We can finally stop living in constant peril.

“As many of you heard by now, Lucifer, the Fallen, has returned. I can confirm this rumor. Our brother, though different than we knew, is come. And he will lead us—all of us—to a sustainable, effective future.

“Anyone who dares remain loyal to Michael, know one thing. You cannot succeed. The old commander is nearly dead; the old commander never cared about any one of you. Not me, not Hester—not a single godforsaken angel—his brothers and sisters.

“Lucifer cares. And Lucifer will be victorious over the demons. Over the hunters. Over the humans. Over Creation itself. With me at his side, as I was with Michael.

“I understand this is sudden. I understand there must be so many questions. But hear me, brothers and sisters. I worked closely with Michael. His path was never the one to compassion. He came bearing a sword, not peace, and he took aim at everyone, not just the enemy.

“Lucifer’s rise will bring with him the rise of the most successful, just Heaven we could ever imagine.

“I understand if there are doubts. _I_ doubted him myself, brothers and sisters. But he is the better candidate. Like I said, Lucifer will bring us wealth.

“A new day is upon us. Do it for Constantine, whose death Michael kept from absolutely everyone. Do it for the countless other siblings he probably gave the same treatment.

“As you were. Castiel~.”

Michael wasn’t exempt from Castiel’s~ announcement, and he snarled up at his old second-in-command. “History looks down on traitors, Castiel~.”

“As it does tyrants, Michael.”

The only living (arch)angel who had not heard the message was Lucifer, a happenstance that perplexed both him and Castiel~.

“What do you mean?” Castiel~ asked upon hearing of Lucifer’s predicament. “ _Every_ angel should have gotten it. That was the _point_.”

“It appears your communication tactics don’t work with outsiders,” Lucifer replied dryly. “Looks like that whole ordeal’s on you.”

“What a shame,” Michael added, still keeping his sarcastic sense of humor intact in spite of his deteriorating body.

“Bite me, Michael,” Lucifer taunted. “You have bigger problems than I do, last I checked.” He was twiddling the blade, which was still soaked in Michael’s blood, with his fingers.

“I’m dead anyway, Lucifer. Might as well enjoy the remaining time I have with my younger brother and my traitorous dick of a second-hand, right?”

“It never had to come to this, you know,” Castiel~ replied grimly. “If you would have done your job right, we wouldn’t be here.”

“Like hell,” Michael scoffed, which turned into a cough. “I saw it in your eyes the whole time. You’re so thirsty for power, Castiel~; you were a ticking time bomb.”

“We could have done great things, Michael. It’s not on me that you have no conscience. Our brothers and sisters didn’t deserve to die unrecognized and disrespected. You call _me_ power-hungry? That’s rich from you, Michael.”

“I can’t understand why you condemn Farrah,” Michael replied, knowing Castiel’s~ relationship with her was a touchy subject.

“I hope to our Father, wherever he is, that angels like you go somewhere worse than Hell in death, Michael,” Castiel~ growled.

“You’re so blinded by your own self-righteousness. You think teaming up with _Lucifer_ —with the _Devil_ —is honestly more just than me?”

“Damn straight.”

“Then you’re mad, Castiel~. He’s more corrupt than I am.”

“Tell that to Constantine.”

“Constantine! Constantine! Constantine! Always with Constantine! Do you have any other cards, Castiel~? Constantine was a _lackey_ , a corporate number-cruncher and nothing more. She was never going to last on the frontlines, and you know it just as well as I do. Of _course_ she’s dead, Castiel~. And of _course_ I let it go unnoticed. She didn’t fit into the bigger picture.”

“That is where you’re wrong, Michael. Every angel—no matter his or her standing—deserves a place in Heaven. Our brothers and sisters are not disposable, Michael. They put their faith in you, and in return you spat on their graves.”

“Well, maybe it’s about time angelkind stopped putting so much _faith_ into rulers, wouldn’t you say? I mean, we _all_ had faith in Dad, right? Look where _that_ got us.”

“You verge on blasphemy, Michael.”

“ _Blasphemy_?” Michael was so amused that he found the strength to chuckle. “You _can’t_ be serious. It’s not blasphemy, Castiel~; it’s truth.”

“It’s _your_ truth, Michael. For the rest of our kind, faith is the only thing we have. Take that away, and what’s left?”

Michael rolled his eyes. “If you want me dead, get to it already,” he commanded. “I’m tired of the philosophy debate.”

“Gladly, brother,” Lucifer hissed. He held the archangel blade steady in his right hand and took a step forward. He positioned the blade in the center of Michael’s chest and held it there, unwavering. “I’ve waited for this for a long, long while, Michael.” After a moment’s pause, he curled his lips to a smile and gave a scoff. Taking the blade off Michael’s chest, he said, “You think I want to let you off that easily? You have another thing coming, brother. I want you to suffer like I suffered. I want you to feel all the wrath and the brimstone and the _pain_ that our lovely Father was capable of just like I did.”

Castiel~ watched the scene in intense awe as he contemplated what Michael had said about him. It hadn’t been wrong. He was, in fact, thirsty for whatever power he could hold. Though he had acted humble before Lucifer not too long before—as if he hadn’t wanted a spot by his side all the while—he knew Michael had seen right through it. And, though he knew Michael was oblivious to what had happened with Farrah all those years ago, he knew it had only served to prove Michael right further. He _ruined_ her to advance himself.

He tensed at the thought of her. He shouldn’t have left her alive. And so he turned to Lucifer and said, “I have unfinished business on Earth, Lucifer. If you wouldn’t mind my taking leave for a short time; Farrah is down there, and she has much to… atone for.”

“Not yet, Castiel~,” Lucifer replied. “She’s the least of our concerns.”

“Then what do you suggest? She’ll never heed your order, you know. An example needs to be set.”

“As it will be,” Lucifer assured. “But one thing at a time, Cassie~. We’ve only just taken the throne, and you’re already off to the races. Stay awhile, won’t you? Savor the moment.”

“Yes, Cassie~, please do,” Michael teased.

“You have no place in this conversation,” Lucifer said to Michael.

“I have a place in whatever conversation I put myself in, Luci,” Michael replied coolly. “You’re the one who’s ballsy enough to take over Heaven but not enough to just fucking _kill_ me. You shouldn’t be talking.”

His continued attitude in the face of certain torment was a rouse.

Unbeknownst to Castiel~ and Lucifer, the second the coup had insurrected, Michael had sent out a distress call—to Farrah, of all angels, knowing of her contempt towards Castiel~ and hoping it could be used to his advantage despite the fact that she hated him as well. “Castiel~. Lucifer. Mutiny.” That was all he had said.

He’d gotten a less than enthusiastic reply. “Sounds intense. Sorry, don’t care and can’t help.”

“Get to Heaven. Trust no one but me.”

In that moment, he’d used his remaining power to clear her skin of its branding. He had hoped maybe she’d show up, but, alas, she never came, leaving him powerless and at the disposal of his capturers.

This was all just before Castiel~ took it upon himself to expose the former reign’s secrets. The second he had, Michael had received new communication from Farrah.

“I’m on it.”

And so he began his jests, keeping Farrah out of harm’s way. He didn’t know what exactly she had in mind, but he figured it’d be bold enough to succeed.


	11. Breakdown

Once Castiel and Jack had accustomed to the Earth again, the quartet sat ‘round the table in the front room, dead-set on understanding just what it was that made Jack tick. Castiel and Jack shared a side of the table, as Jack had pleaded on the way down the staircase; Sam sat to their left, and Dean sat opposite them, leaning forward and propping himself up on his elbows, looking intently to the two celestial entities before him. He was still rather in shock.

Dean, though one would be hard-pressed to hear a confession from the man, under the circumstances, felt obligated to warm up to Jack. After all, little boy had been telling the truth from the jump; all the kid had wanted was to restore his Father—Castiel—and that’s exactly what he had done. And, from where Dean sat, he struggled to see how that wasn’t a benefit. Though it was against every gut instinct he had, he had grown trusting of Jack after the whole affair with Castiel had gone down. Still, he refused to let anyone but Jack know this; the last thing he needed was a snarky remark from his brother, but he knew the Nephilim had a right to an apology, however out-of-character and uncomfortable it felt to admit.

Sam prompted the tabletop discussion, clapping his hands together and staring at the kid with the utmost of appreciation. “I think I speak for the both of us when I say I’m speechless, Jack. That was…” He sought for a word, but Dean interjected before he could settle on one.

“Incredible,” Dean replied lowly, but sentimentally. “It was incredible. Gotta hand it to you, kid. You made a promise, and, by God, you delivered.”

“I told you, Dean,” Jack responded through his grin. “I told you all I wanted was to bring back Castiel. I told you I could do it.”

“And you were right,” Dean conceded.

Jack’s eyes were wide, his pride bursting through them like firecrackers.

“But that raises a question,” Castiel added coolly. “If you can break in _there_ , what else can you do?”

Jack shrugged. “Sam and Dean say I can do anything.”

“ _Almost_ anything,” Dean corrected. “Let’s not get too ahead of ourselves.”

“So far, kid’s survived a whole arsenal of weapons, lit a fire with his mind, killed a Prince of Hell, broken into two other dimensions, and resurrected a dead angel. Starting to sound like he can do anything,” Sam scoffed.

Castiel arched an inquisitive eyebrow. “Apparently you’ve been busy,” he chuckled, looking back and forth between the Winchesters. “Sorry I missed it.”

“Yeah, well, don’t be a tease, Cas; what the hell happened?” Dean asked, sitting back in his chair. “More importantly—how in hell do you keep coming back?”

Castiel shrugged, settling his gaze on the older Winchester. “I wish I could tell you,” he said dryly. “God only knows why He likes me so damn much.”

Dean scoffed and rolled his eyes casually. “Come on—you mean to tell me you _died_ and you came back with no stories? I don’t believe that for a damn second. People usually have some wild experiences with afterlife, and I speak from experience.”

“I don’t know what you want to hear. When an angel dies, it’s not like it is for humans. It’s void; it’s complete emptiness. That’s it. Pitch black, eternal, and just below room temperature. We don’t get a ‘Heaven’ or a ‘Hell,’ Dean. We don’t have souls. So instead we exist for eternity just outside this reality all by ourselves in an infinite void. And that is the entirety of my story.”

“Fascinating,” Dean replied sarcastically. “Glad we covered that.”

“It is a dreadful place, Dean. I beg you to stop making him dwell on it,” Jack pleaded, his eyebrows knitted into concerned lines.

Dean held his hands up defensively. “Whatever you want, kid,” he obliged.

“Thank you,” Jack said, feeling increasingly comfortable in the presence of the older Winchester, especially now that Castiel was by his side. With his Father at his arm, he felt certain there was nothing he was incapable of.

“You do know what this means, right?” Sam interrupted.

“Enlighten us,” Dean implored.

“Jack got to Cas, and Cas just said he wasn’t in our dimension. Maybe that means there’s a chance he could get to Mom.”

Dean’s eyes fell from his brother to his hands on the table. Still, he, too, was curious. He continued to believe their mother was dead, but perhaps if Jack could get them there and prove it to Sam for certain, it would get his little brother to stop bringing it up every chance he had. As such, he entertained the notion. “What do you say, kid?”

Jack shrugged. “I do not know,” he admitted.

Castiel looked between the brothers now. “What happened to Mary?”

Dean sighed, and the Winchesters looked each other dead in the eyes now. “You’re a little more optimistic than me,” Dean said. “You can do the honors.”

Sam pursed his lips and sighed, rolling his eyes at his brother before directing his gaze to Castiel, who had one eyebrow raised in definitive concern. “Lucifer followed you out of the Alternate Dimension…”

Castiel cut him off. “Yeah. He killed me. I’m aware. What _happened_ to _Mary_?”

“And after he… Well, long story short, Mom decided to take a shot at him. She was wearing those Enochian things the British Men of Letters had.”

“I hate those,” Castiel sighed.

Sam scoffed, but he continued his story. “ _Anyway_ , she knocked him back into the opening. But he took her with him. And that’s when the door sealed.”

“AKA, Lucifer ripped her fricken heart out,” Dean added.

“Dean’s a skeptic,” Sam said calmly.

“I guess I didn’t miss much after all,” Castiel said with humor in his eyes.

§§§

Meanwhile, Castiel~ and Lucifer’s mutiny had shaken the power dynamics of the Alternate Reality. For a brief time, Heaven was thrown into chaos, which Lucifer said was “nothing more than a phase. Angels—petulant teenagers, the lot of them. They’ll settle down eventually. Soldiers have to follow _someone_ , and, once they open up to us, everything will be running smoothly again.”

“I know how power shifts work, Lucifer,” Castiel~ scoffed. “You forget I stood by Michael when he took control from Dad.”

“In the meantime, you wanted to make an example of someone, did you not?”

Castiel~ nodded. “Farrah,” he clarified. “She… likes to play by her own rules. Michael had the sense enough to cast her down, but he never could bring himself to do what he had to do.”

“Bite me, Castiel~,” Michael groaned. “If I thought Farrah deserved to die, she’d be dead. Ask Ezra.”

“You never bonded with Ezra the way you did Farrah,” Castiel~ scorned. “Killing him means nothing; her transgression was worse. Ezra never got anyone killed, last I recall.”

“Maybe not,” Michael admitted. “But he had that coming.”

“And Farrah doesn’t?”

“No,” Michael asserted. “Because _Farrah_ has one thing Ezra never did, Castiel~.”

“Oh? Pray tell, Michael.”

“ _Loyalty_ , Castiel~—loyalty!” Michael exclaimed. “You said yourself that she is trustworthy—I mean, that _is_ where you heard about Constantine to begin with. Ezra never had any loyalties but to himself, Castiel~. But, then again, maybe you can relate. Maybe that’s why you’re so adamant that he didn’t deserve what he got.”

“I never said Ezra didn’t deserve it,” Castiel~ snarled. “But Farrah did too.”

“She didn’t, Castiel~. You coward—can’t even admit that there might be some good inside her. I know she was a threat to you, Castiel~. It doesn’t change her merits.”

Castiel~ simply fumed in response.

“Can’t even bring yourself to counter me anymore,” Michael said triumphantly. “I do apologize for insinuating earlier that you and Farrah are anything similar, Castiel~. That was my mistake. I should never have done her so wrongly.”

“Go to Hell, Michael,” Castiel~ growled.

“Gladly,” Michael sneered.

“Give it a rest, won’t you, Cassie~?” Lucifer cried, irritated by the constant drone of his brother’s voice. “If you want Farrah dead, she’s dead. No need to argue with Michael about it.”

“You’re right,” Castiel~ replied, collecting himself. “I apologize; I was acting childish.”

“And you wonder why I would have chosen Farrah over you,” Michael yawned. “At least the girl has a personality.”

Lucifer rolled his eyes. “I take it back, brother,” he said coldly to Michael.

“Oh, yeah? Take what back, Luci?”

With no reply but his signature self-satisfied grin, he ran Michael through with the blade. He and Castiel~ watched with awe as the trademark brilliant light burst from the former Victor’s vessel. Once it had dissipated, Lucifer turned to Castiel~ and said, “That takes care of that.”

§§§

Farrah, as Michael had said before his demise, did, in fact, have quite the personality, and it was proving to be useful beyond reconciliation with Michael. Beyond her comprehension, she had roped Singer and Turner (whose names Farrah had learned were Bobby and Rufus respectively) into taking their chances with her at last.

The trio were now taking refuge in the house Turner “owned” in Oregon—for lack of a better word. He didn’t rent out, but technically speaking he was not the owner. It just appeared that the real owner was long dead; Turner had occupied the house for years now.

Though both hunters had accepted her, she could still tell there was doubt in their minds, as they were very much entitled to have, under the circumstances. Hell, Michael couldn’t trust his own second-in-command! Why should these two hunters be obligated to trust her?

They looked each other over, but none of them said a word for quite some time. That is, not until Farrah decided it best to open up about the goings-on upstairs.

“Michael—he’s been… detained,” she informed, evidently distant.

“Oh?” Rufus said, dryly. “Meaning what?”

“It’s nothing but politics, I’m afraid,” Farrah scoffed.

“We have time,” Rufus replied.

Farrah cleared her throat. “Michael was the ruler of Heaven. Under him, Lucifer—the Devil himself—was laid to waste.”

“Sounds charming,” Bobby commented.

“Anything but. He’s the reason this damned War is on, men. He never cared enough to do anything about it; he just reveled in the idea of having all of Creation at his whim. Bit of an asshole, Michael.”

“Alright,” Rufus said, fixedly. “So then if your winged friends took him down, how is that a problem?”

“Because he’s been overtaken by someone far worse than him,” Farrah sighed. “Aided by Michael’s psychotic second-hand, the angel Castiel~.”

“I met a Castiel,” Bobby remarked. “Came through some kind of door—said he was from a different dimension.”

“Trust me, this Castiel~ is from around here. As for his partner, he may not be.”

“And who might this ‘partner’ of his be?”

“Lucifer, of course.”

“Naturally.”

“So, you see, this mutiny—it’s a problem for us all.”

“So we fight back,” Rufus said with a shrug. “Gone our whole lives doing that.”

“You think we could do that? Fight Castiel~ and Lucifer? Some kind of… Resistance?”

“Some kind of Resistance indeed,” Bobby scoffed, looking at the two others.


	12. Various & Sundry Villains

Castiel~ had touched down to Earth just after witnessing his former boss’ death. Feeling exceptionally livelier now that the ball and chain had been detached from his ankle, he put an angelic APB out on Farrah, who’d gone MIA since he’d last spoken with her, through angel radio. In the meanwhile, he searched for her manually. He had hoped against hope he’d be able to track her, but, naturally, she had been warded.

Just then, he was taken by surprise when a yellow tear ripped into the space before him. He had, for a split second, contemplated examining it, but in the end, he decided against it and flew up to Heaven, to the safety of the Command Center.

Lucifer had still not moved Michael’s body.

“Lucifer,” Castiel~ said, panting slightly. “You’ll never believe what happened down there.”

“Did you find your angel?”

“No—I found something far more dangerous.”

§§§§§

About an hour before, Jack, Sam, Dean, and Cas had been trying to see just how powerful the kid could be. They were making slim progress; he’d managed to ruffle Castiel’s tie just a bit.

“We know you can teleport—right? How else did you get to Cas?” Dean asked, feeling less patient than the others.

“No, that is _travelling_ ,” Jack insisted. “ _Castiel_ can teleport. He has wings.”

Sam and Dean raised their eyebrows in unison. “That’s a development,” Dean said, looking directly at Cas now. “Would have been something to mention.”

“Didn’t want to get your hopes up,” Castiel replied with a nonchalant shrug. “I’ve checked—they’re not there now. Must have been a dimensional thing. Maybe dead angel bodies get… I don’t know, maybe they’re restored to factory settings. But the only times I’ve ever come back where I was intact on _this_ plane, God interfered.”

“Yeah, okay,” Dean said, narrowing his eyes skeptically. “We’ll come back to that,” he assured. He looked back to Jack, who was fixating on the dead air just above Castiel’s head. “In the meantime...—hello? Jack?”

“You, Dean Winchester, are a distraction,” Jack pouted, crossing his arms. He kept his gaze where it was.

“You, Jack Kline, are staring at nothingness,” Dean mocked.

Jack rolled his eyes and tore his attention away to Dean. “Maybe to you,” he scoffed. “But if you let me _focus_ , maybe you will understand.” He focused back on the same point again.

Dean pursed his lips. “Celestials,” he muttered.

A minute of silence passed, and nothing came of Jack’s concentration. Sam, now slightly concerned for the Nephilim’s sanity, took a step toward him, but was stopped in his tracks.

“ _No_ ,” Jack hissed. “I know what I am doing,” he maintained.

Just when Sam opened his mouth to speak, the words were lost to him. A blue light glowed from where Jack was staring, and, in the center, a faint white circle hovered above the angel’s head.

Castiel looked up to it and, upon seeing it, gave a playful look to Jack. “Okay, seriously?” he said with a light laugh. “Are you done?”

Jack beamed and nodded. The light went off.

Dean was amused for multiple reasons. “First thing—I think it’s so precious that you have a little halo,” he said to Castiel, putting a friendly hand on his shoulder that Cas shoved off. “Second—Damien’s done… something.”

“Jack,” the Nephilim pouted.

“We’ve had this talk before,” Dean sighed.

“I’m a little… well, okay, I don’t know what to make of that,” Castiel admitted. “I mean—I know _I_ can do something similar, but I’ve never seen someone be able to conjure up someone _else’s_ halo.”

As he spoke, he shattered just a few lights to prove his point, opening his wings just enough for the Winchesters and Jack to get what he was talking about. About as quickly as he’d revealed them, he shut them down, looking casually between the other three.

“That was kind of unnecessary, Cas; thank you,” Dean teased. “Look what you did—that’s, what, fourteen lights we need to replace?”

Castiel shrugged. “But, hey—what did I say about my wings? You see the damn things? Practically featherless by now.”

“Not the time,” Dean replied.

“ _Anyway_ , he’s onto— _Jack_ , what in hell?” Castiel furrowed his brows and widened his eyes as he watched the Nephilim.

The kid had been staring down the far wall, and, while Cas and Dean were going at one another, he had begun tearing a hole into the air. Its hems glittered golden.

“No way in hell,” Sam said, astounded.

“Guess we can get back to _Apocalypse Now_ ,” Dean remarked, folding his arms across his chest.

Jack held his chin high. “I think I finally know how to do this,” he said, bursting with pride.

“Yeah,” Sam replied with a chuckle. “Yeah, no kidding.”

“That _is_ what you wanted, right?” Jack asked, looking up to Sam with puppy-dog eyes.

Sam nodded gratefully. “Yeah, Jack. It is.”

There was a brief moment’s silence where the four did absolutely nothing but stare into the portal.

It was disrupted by Dean, naturally. He crossed the room and, noticing no one had followed, beckoned, “We saving Mom or not?”

Sam scoffed, crossing his arms, but he nodded and motioned for Jack and Cas to follow, to which they obliged.

§§§§§

“I don’t _know_ , Lucifer,” Castiel~ growled. “You keep _asking_ the same question like I’ll _give you_ a different answer. It’s _maddening_.”

Lucifer rolled his eyes. “Alright, fine,” he sighed. “If you don’t know what it is, then describe it for me. You can’t very well turn up here—before achieving your goal, might I add—and tell me there’s something ‘dangerous’ on Earth without giving me any context.”

Castiel~ rolled his eyes. “I—it was… like a door, I guess. Looked like someone had cut into reality itself with a blade. It was glowing, and jagged, and generally unnatural. Now, _you_ claim to be some kind of interdimensional traveler, which, I mean, great—more power to you, but personally, I don’t think that’s supposed to be there.”

Lucifer put his head in his left hand. “Lord, help us all,” he murmured. He looked back up to a confused Castiel~. “Ignore it,” he directed.

“Hard to do,” Castiel~ scoffed.

“Well, do it anyway,” Lucifer replied with a shrug. “Focus on Farrah instead, why don’t you? Make it easier on yourself.”

Castiel~ sighed irritably. “Whatever you say, brother,” he mocked. With that, he flew back to Earth. The second he made contact with the ground, he got a message from Hannah, who had tracked down Farrah as was delegated to the angels, which made it exceptionally easier to ignore the portal in front of him.

“Farrah’s coordinates are 45.523 and -122.676. Portland, Oregon. That city got turned upside down after Michael won. Somewhat of a haven for hunter-types nowadays, so watch your back.”

“Portland,” Castiel~ said to himself, shaking his head. He smirked and flew there without sending Hannah a response.

He noticed as he wandered through the city a house mostly warded that had one sigil made to be ineffective. It piqued his interest.

Sure enough, that’s where he found her. “Farrah,” he greeted. “Should’ve known I’d find you in Portland,” he scoffed, looking around at the accommodations the Resistance had assumed. “Would you mind stepping out?”

Farrah scowled at him.

“Whatever you have to say to her, you can sure as hell say to us,” Bobby snarled, grabbing the angel blade in his pocket.

“Oh, save it,” Castiel~ sighed. With a flick of his wrist, Bobby and Rufus dropped to the ground instantaneously.

Farrah’s initial instinct told her to boil with anger, but she was soothed when she could still hear their heartbeats and see their souls when she looked at their faces. So, instead, she brushed herself off and approached Castiel~.

“How are things upstairs, Cassie~?” she taunted. “You know, I heard your little PSA, but, and I don’t mean any offense, I’m a little underwhelmed. I mean, hell, I figured Michael’s trust in you would bite him in the ass someday; I just always pegged you for the ‘go-it-alone’ type of guy. But, such that it is, you needed a dominatrix.”

“Mind your tongue, Farrah,” Castiel~ growled. He took her by the shirt collar.

“This is getting… well, okay, I mean, I’m always up for a little kinky sex, but, honey, you ain’t my type. And, besides, we’re being _watched_ , don’t you know?”

He grimaced down to her, holding her collar so tightly his vessel’s knuckles turned white with pressure.

“Michael let you off easy,” he said. “I came to fix his mistake.”

“ _Michael_ let me off easy because Sophia’s death was not my fault, and who would know that better than you? Perhaps Hester, but we all know what your new pal Luci did about _her_ , don’t we?” she jeered.

“You were insubordinate from the beginning, Farrah. Hester and I simply showed Michael what was there the whole time.”

“I always liked Hester better than I did you, truth be told. Bit of a shame she had to bite it and not you. Oh, well. World ain’t perfect. Although, funny you should parade her death like it’s some sort of skeleton in Michael’s closet when _you’re_ the one playing dress-up with her assailant.” She shrugged. “Guess I should have seen it coming, though. How long before you overthrow Luci, hm? I give it a week tops.”

“Keep it up, Farrah, and I promise I will do so much more than make you an example,” Castiel~ warned, his voice low and threatening.

Farrah scoffed in reply. “You go ahead and do your worst, sweetheart. You’re the one leaving my avenging angels over there breathing.”

“I’m not here to take the lives of innocents, Farrah.”

“Well, hell, if Heaven’s upping the punishment for treason, shouldn’t you be first on Death Row? I mean, you and Lucifer _did_ kill the sitting King, you know. Sounds like treason to me.”

Castiel~ tightened his other hand into a fist, but, when Farrah had no response but the raise of a questioning eyebrow, he let go of her collar. “What did you do?”

“I’ve had a busy life, Castiel~. You’re going to need to elaborate.”

“Michael set those brandings up to be… responsive. You should be writhing right now, so _how_ are you upward?”

“ _Oh_ , right, Michael’s little mark. Quite the little bugger, I got to say. Luckily for me, he gave me a parting gift. Took the little bastard right off behind your backs. Figured I’d fly up and spare him, I suppose. Flattering and all, and I’m glad as anything to be free of that damned brand, but I still held enough of a grudge against him to let Lucifer do as he wished. There’s enough rage in here for more than one higher-up, you know.”

Over behind Farrah, the hunters began to stir, prompting Castiel’s~ swift departure.


	13. Devil's Bargain

Sam, Dean, Jack, and Cas had crossed over to the Alternate Timeline just as Castiel~ had fled to Heaven to bring news of the rift to Lucifer. As such, they were greeted by the sound of angel wings and biblical War and not much of anything else.

For Team Free Will, it was not the first time they’d seen this side of the terminal. Jack, however, had only been told it existed; he’d never seen it himself. He looked at the dull grey of his surroundings with knitted eyebrows and pursed lips. “And you are sure your mother is here?” he asked, hesitant. “Because there does not seem to be much of anything here.”

“I already told you what I think,” Dean replied stiffly. “But we’re here. Might as well make a sweep of the area.”

“The _area_?” Sam scoffed. “Dean—it’s a _dimension_. The area covers the entire planet, you know.”

“Being thorough isn’t a crime, Sam,” Dean teased. “Hey, look, we’re here on _your_ whim, not mine. You signed up for this.”

Sam rolled his eyes. “Alright, great. Do we have a lead at least?”

The other three stared blankly at each other before giving the same expression to Sam as a collective reply.

“No,” Dean said, raising his chin. “I don’t think we do.”

“Promising,” Sam chuckled, looking around at the barren wasteland. “And where are we right now?”

“We are twelve minutes outside of North Cove, Washington,” Castiel informed, also taking in the surroundings. “Where the door was opened the first time.”

“Great, well, Mom couldn’t have gone too far, right?” Sam said, being optimistic enough for the four of them.

“Nice try. Been _weeks_ , Sam,” Dean scoffed. “If she’s not _dead_ by now—which she is—she could be anywhere.”

Sam was about to retort, but he lost track of his thoughts when the sound of angel wings came from behind him. He narrowed his eyes and turned to look at the owner.

“This got… stranger,” Dean remarked under his breath.

“That’s a word,” Sam said, hushing his chuckle so as not to draw attention to their party.

“Speak for yourselves,” Castiel interjected. He was tense, taken aback as he watched the spitting image of himself.

The alternate Castiel~ squinted his eyes as if he were listening to (or for) something. Then, he muttered, “Portland,” and, after a self-satisfied smirk, he was gone.

Sam, Dean, Jack, and Cas turned back to one another. Castiel arched an eyebrow, looking back and forth between the Winchesters.

“Well,” he started, adjusting his trench coat. “Portland sounds useful to me.”

It took them far longer to reach Oregon than it had Castiel~. After all, he could still fly; their Cas could not. Jack made an effort to teleport them there, but it had failed. So they started the journey by foot, and somewhere along the way, Dean had hotwired a car.

“So are we just going to pretend this lead isn’t from Bizarre-o Cas then?” Dean asked on the drive to Portland. “Because, and call me crazy, that sounds dodgy to me.”

“Everything here is dodgy, Dean,” Sam countered. “A lead is a lead.”

“Yeah, but come on, Sam. Alternate Cas. That’s insane.”

“Again, speak for yourself,” Cas scoffed. “At least it’s not _your_ double.”

“Wouldn’t be. We don’t exist here.”

“Yes, thank you, Dean. I know. So count your blessings,” Castiel mocked.

“I do not understand,” Jack interrupted. “That was… Castiel?”

“You pose an interesting philosophical question, Jack,” Cas started.

“ _Whoa_ , stop right now. We’re not going down that path,” Dean said. “Look, Jack, we’ll keep it simple. No—it wasn’t Cas. Just looked like him.”

“But, Dean, it _was_ me. It just wasn’t _me_.”

“Well, now I am more confused than I was before,” Jack sighed, putting his head in his hands. “Are we hunting Castiel or not?”

“If we were hunting Cas, we wouldn’t be driving all the way to Portland considering the man is in the car with us _right now_ ,” Dean teased. “It’s… think of him like a twin, yeah? Sort of the same, but not really.”

“I still do not understand,” Jack replied.

“Forget it,” Dean sighed, rolling his eyes. “No—we’re not chasing Cas. We’re chasing Bizarre-o Cas. Big difference.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. One’s family, and the other could be anything.”

“But how do we tell them apart?”

“That Castiel has wings,” Cas informed. “I guess technically we both do, but his are actually intact—functional. Unlike mine. Not the _most_ helpful thing, but it’s a start. At least there’s one distinguishing feature.”

Jack nodded and looked out the widow.

By the time they reached Portland, Castiel~ was long gone. However, Farrah, Rufus, and Bobby remained in the same house, and it didn’t take Cas long to notice the same feature his doppelganger had upon scanning the city.

“Hey—all of these buildings are warded. Every last one,” he remarked, looking around at their surroundings. “All of them but one. There’s warding _there_ , but one of the sigils was altered. Whole thing’s inactive now.”

“Wait—the _entire_ city of Portland is warded against angels?” Dean asked incredulously. “I’ll be damned.”

“Makes sense. Place is in the midst of biblical warfare. Wouldn’t be surprised if people wanted to keep out the angels,” Castiel observed with a shrug. “Like I said, though—there’s a building that’s warding is off. Which, given the situation, interests me just a little bit more.”

“Right,” Dean said shortly. “Lead the way, Sacajawea.”

Castiel rolled his eyes, but he did as told nonetheless, approaching the Resistance’s hideout with the other three following him at a distance.

Jack, as they neared the house, focused his energy on its door. As such, by the time he, Sam, and Dean caught up to Castiel on the derelict little walkway, the door was blown inwards, entirely off its hinges.

“Seriously?” Dean hissed. “Subtle, Jack.”

Jack gave him a grin.

“What the _hell_ happened?”

The voice belonged to a woman. A furious woman, at that. It was shortly accompanied by fast footsteps.

“Sounds inviting,” Dean muttered.

“Castiel~?” The woman was eyeing Cas, and it seemed that the longer she stared at him the more irritable she became. “Are you serious? You already tried this.” Her eyes caught the other three, and she chuckled, rolling her eyes. “Back-up? Really?”

Cas’ own eyes widened. He looked her up and down manically before turning back to the Winchesters and Jack and mouthing, “What do I do?”

Both brothers shrugged, and Jack had no reply.

Cas rolled his eyes and looked back to the woman. She looked so familiar, but he couldn’t place his finger on her name.

“Well?” she asked. “Are you going to do anything, or did you come here to just stand in our doorway?”

“Do we… know each other?” he queried.

She scoffed. “You were here, like, a day ago, Cassie~. All high and mighty, talking about ‘Farrah, you transgressed. Farrah, you’re insubordinate. Farrah, we’re going to put you to death.’ Ring a bell, Castiel~? Honestly, what is _with_ you? Lucifer got you that out of your own skull already?”

“ _Farrah_ ,” he repeated, furrowing his brows. She used to be in his Garrison back in his warrior days—at least the one in his dimension. 

“Uh, yeah,” she said with a laugh. “My God, Castiel~, really? The shtick isn’t going to work with me. Lucifer put you up to this?” 

“Lucifer didn’t… I, uh—hold on,” he said before turning entirely back to Sam, Dean, and Jack. The second he did, he felt a sharp pressure on his right shoulder blade. Farrah had put her angel blade to his back, and she was holding his left shoulder to stabilize herself. “Do something,” he told them, tensing his muscles. 

The Winchesters looked at one another and did a quick round of rock-paper-scissors. 

Dean lost. Naturally. 

Sam shoved him forward, and he gave Farrah an uncomfortable smile. He exchanged a look with Cas before returning his attention to her. 

“It’s Farrah, you said?” he asked, his voice higher than usual. 

“Yes…” she replied slowly. “And you are?” 

“Dean Winchester,” he said, straightening up. 

“Charmed,” she replied nonchalantly. Once it hit her what he said, she nearly drove the blade through Castiel’s back in shock, but she stopped herself after creating nothing more than a nick. “Excuse me?” 

“We know each other?” 

“Well, no, but— _all_ the angels have heard of you. You and your brother Sam. You were supposed to be the vessels, but Heaven shut down the operation _decades_ ago. So how the hell are we talking right now? You never _happened_.” 

“So I’ve heard,” Dean said coolly. 

The five of them had made ruckus enough to interest Rufus and Bobby, who flanked Farrah after entering the scene. 

Bobby had already interacted with this merry band once before, but it had appeared the show added a new cast member. “Sam? Dean?” he said, aghast. “Who’s the sidekick?” 

“My name is Jack.” 

“ _What_ is the sidekick?” Farrah asked, her eyes wider yet. “I can sense celestial energy, but it’s like nothing I’ve ever felt before.” 

“He’s…” Castiel paused, wrestling with whether or not he should tell her. 

Dean did it for him. “He’s a Nephilim. You know, offspring of—” 

“An angel and a human, yeah. I know. But how? Who?” 

“He’s Lucifer’s,” Castiel said with resignation. 

“Christ, everyone’s got a bone to pick with the man nowadays. So, what? Produces the Antichrist in your dimension then decides to hop into ours and run the joint?” 

“I’m sorry?” Castiel asked. “You said he ‘ _runs_ the joint’?” 

“You boys want a drink?” Rufus offered, stepping back to allow them to come in. “Got a lot of catching up to do.” 


	14. Good Intentions

They followed Farrah, Bobby, and Rufus into the house after exchanging wide-eyed expressions with one another.

Upon entering, Castiel felt definitively different than he had outside. He tapped Farrah to get her attention. Once she was looking at him, he asked, “Is it just me, or do you feel strange here too?”

“Oh, right. They only altered one sigil; it’s powered down enough to let us in, but it’s still mostly warded, so it’ll weaken you.”

He, personally, felt “weaken” was an understatement. He was beginning to feel as out-of-touch with his vessel as he had when he and Jack crossed into the Winchesters’ plane of existence. However, he noticed Farrah exhibiting the same behavior, so he assumed it was nothing more than an irritation. After all, she wouldn’t voluntarily stay somewhere that would be a threat to her.

Rufus opened a cooler and retrieved a beer for each of their guests, with the exception of Jack, who he instead gave a skeptical glance. “How old are you?”

“Old enough,” Dean interrupted.

Rufus shrugged and pulled one out for Jack too. He handed it to the kid before closing the cooler and assuming a seat on top of it. Cleanly and casually, he popped the lid off of it, despite it being a twist-off. “Where you boys from?” he asked before taking a swig of his alcohol.

“Technically, Lawrence, Kansas,” Dean replied coolly. “But I don’t think that’s the answer you wanted.”

“It’s not.”

“They’re from a different dimension,” Bobby exclaimed with a scoff. “Had a run-in with them not too long ago near North Cove.”

Farrah arched an eyebrow. “And Lucifer? He’s not from a third dimension, yeah? He’s yours?”

“Unfortunately,” Castiel replied.

“Thanks,” Farrah said sarcastically. “He’s been charming.”

The Winchesters and Castiel looked one another over. They hadn’t considered that their plan to trap him there could have impacted others the way she implied.

“So, fill us in,” Sam prompted. “What have we missed?”

“Let’s see,” Farrah sighed, racking her brain. “Well, Lucifer touched down and got Castiel’s~ attention—”

“Pardon?” Cas asked, furrowing his brows.

“Your double’s a major player, honey,” she purred. “Anyway, he got Jofiel’s attention, which got Castiel’s~ attention. So he took it to Michael—”

“I report to _Michael_?”

“Report _ed_. Bastard was Michael’s second-in-command, matter of fact. Now, would you let me finish?”

“Sorry.”

“Yes, he reported to Michael, who made him start a search for Lucifer. They found him, Hester died, Lucifer corrupted Castiel~ _further_. And together they overthrew Michael and took over Heaven. Which catches you all up.

“Look, no one liked Michael’s ruling, alright. Man had no concept of empathy. But _Lucifer_? With _Castiel~_? I don’t see this going well.”

“And so you’re hiding in Portland with a pair of hunters?” Dean scoffed.

“Well, if you lot stay and help, maybe we can shut the whole thing down. I mean, you did have a hand in putting him here, I presume.”

“Sounds good to me,” Dean said with a shrug. He reached over and patted Castiel on the shoulder. “If there’s anything this man can do, it’s screw over Heaven.”

“Thanks, Dean. I appreciate it,” Cas growled.

“No problem, buddy.”

“I thought we were here about Mary,” Jack said, looking up to Dean.

“Mary?” Farrah asked him. She, too, turned to Dean. “Who’s Mary?”

“Mary Winchester—or, I guess, you might know her as Mary Campbell,” Dean clarified. “She’s our mother. She was trapped here too.”

“Mary Campbell had _kids_ with that Winchester boy of hers?” Rufus said with a laugh. “What was his name again?”

“John Winchester,” Castiel confirmed.

“You sure y’all ain’t drunk?”

“Actually, like I said earlier, Heaven had them planned out for awhile—John, Mary, Sam, Dean, the whole Brady Bunch. It just didn’t work out,” Farrah informed with a shrug. “Guess their timeline is what would have happened if Raphael hadn’t shut it down.”

“ _Raphael_?” Castiel scoffed. “Ain’t that ironic.”

Farrah raised an eyebrow and looked as if she were about to reply, but they were interrupted by angels’ wings, a seemingly common occurrence around those parts.

The pack turned to the door and saw Castiel~ and Lucifer standing side-by-side with their chins at matching, boastful angles.

“This is going to drive me crazy,” Cas said, looking his double up and down before turning away from him.

Dean rolled his eyes and wrapped a hand around the angel blade in his pocket. Castiel saw this, which prompted him to prepare his own.

“So many visitors,” Farrah sighed. She glared at Rufus. “I thought you said this place was safe.”

“It _was_ until we powered down the warding.”

“You’ve multiplied,” Lucifer said stiffly, eyeing the extra bodies. Upon recognizing them, his face fell, and he pursed his lips. “Really? Winchesters? _God_ , I swear you people are like cockroaches—it’s like I can’t get rid of you.”

Castiel~ caught sight of Cas now and raised an eyebrow. “What in _hell_?” he asked, tightening the grip around his blade. “What game are you playing at?”

“We’ve made friends,” Farrah bragged. “I’d introduce you, but it seems like you already know each other.”

Lucifer, after staring down the Winchesters and Cas for quite some time, finally laid eyes on Jack. At first, he was unsure what to make of the kid. However, once Jack looked up to him, he felt an instant connection.

“I’ll be damned,” he said under his breath. “You boys brought me my son.”

Castiel~ turned his head slowly to Lucifer. “I beg your pardon?”

“My _son_ , Cassie~,” he exclaimed, not taking his eyes off Jack.

The Nephilim grimaced every time Lucifer spoke. “Leave me alone,” he hissed, his eyes glowing a faint yellow.

“Is that any way to address your father?” Lucifer scoffed.

“My father is Castiel.”

“ _Whoa_ , hold on. I never signed up for that,” Castiel~ said, taking a step back.

“Not _you_ Castiel,” Cas replied, rolling his eyes. He moved closer to Jack. “ _Me_ Castiel.”

Castiel~ put his head in his hand for a second before looking to Lucifer and saying, “Can I kill him, please?”

Lucifer shrugged. “I thought I already did,” he growled, eyeing Cas.

“Yeah, it didn’t take,” Cas scoffed, smirking at the archangel. He looked over to his double. “You’re welcome to try.”

At that, Castiel~ flew himself across the room to Cas. He put a hand on his double’s shoulder and held him down on his knees.

“Are we just going to act as if this isn’t exceptionally weird?” Dean asked, stalling for time. “I mean, really. You’re about to execute _yourself_.”

“He isn’t me,” both Castiels said in unison. They looked back to each other.

“God, I hate you,” Cas scoffed, rolling his eyes.

“Look, it’s been great having company, but I’m going to have to insist y’all leave,” Rufus said dryly.

“Really?” Lucifer jeered.

“Yeah. It’s _my_ house, Luci, and you weren’t invited.”

“Oh, relax,” Lucifer said, rolling his eyes. “We’re not here for you, Turner. How about you just have a drink and mind your business?”

“What are you here for, then?” Dean asked, still eyeing the pair of Castiels as he addressed Lucifer.

“Well, we _were_ here for her,” Castiel~ answered, nodding in Farrah’s direction.

“But you brought my son, so we’ll be taking him as well,” Lucifer finished.

“If you’re not here to kill me, kindly let me go,” Cas said.

“I don’t even know where to _begin_ with you,” Castiel~ scoffed.

“Maybe not kill me,” Cas suggested with a shrug. “Sounds counterproductive to me.”

“He’s got a point,” Dean chuckled. “Lucifer’s tried to off him twice already. Came back both times.”

Castiel~ scowled at his double.

“He’s not wrong,” Cas continued. “I mean, your boss exploded me at a subatomic level, and here we are anyway.”

“Let him go, Castiel~,” Lucifer sighed.

Castiel~ rolled his eyes, but he obliged. He pushed his double back as he removed his hands, smirking as he watched the other Castiel lose balance and fall backwards. After, he flew back to his post at Lucifer’s side.

“Look, Luci, the reunion’s been a blast,” Dean taunted. “But you have to know how this is going to go, right?”

“You make a move for Farrah and Jack, and we shut you down,” Sam added.

“You’re outnumbered,” Dean scoffed. “I don’t know what you’re expecting.”

Castiel~ and Lucifer looked at each other for a few seconds, long enough to communicate through their facial expressions, before nodding and turning back to the crowd.

In an instant, Castiel~ had flown over to Farrah and put a hand on her shoulder, flying her up to Heaven before the others could even process what he had done.

This left the remaining people alone with Lucifer, who was dead set on Jack.

While Sam and Dean kept themselves occupied keeping Lucifer away from Jack, Bobby and Rufus turned to Castiel with unamused glares.

“Why didn’t you follow them?” Rufus asked the angel. “You’re the only one here with wings, boy.”

“They don’t _work_ ,” Castiel replied, irritable.

“Helpful,” Bobby scoffed.

They were distracted by their argument over Farrah by a gold light from Jack’s direction.

The Winchesters had shielded their eyes, and, once they opened them, they found no trace of Lucifer.

“I sent him away,” Jack said with a shrug. “He was threatening.”

“Well, good on you,” Rufus replied. “But we still have a problem, kid.”

“Farrah,” Sam sighed, shaking his head.

§§§§§

Up in Heaven, Farrah was tied to a chair in Command Center. Michael’s body was still lying there in plain sight.

“What, no standards in Heaven anymore?” she jeered. “Can’t even get a tidy Oval Office? What has Heaven _come_ to, Castiel~?”

He rolled his eyes and cut a line down her cheek. “I have a feeling Michael’s the least of your problems right now, Farrah.”


	15. A Most Holy Man

The remaining people, after Farrah, Castiel~, and Lucifer were removed, sat in a huddle around the cooler, letting the object function as a makeshift table in lieu of a better option. Once in awhile, planning would be stalled when someone emptied his bottle and went for a fresh one, but otherwise, all things considered, it worked out decently enough.

Initially, they were drawing blanks. And, when they did come up with something potentially helpful, they found it exceptionally easy to find a plethora of ways it could be potentially harmful—or at least ineffective.

“Cas has been to Heaven before,” Dean threw out with a shrug.

“Dean—no wings, no dice,” Sam replied, rolling his eyes.

“He’s gone upstairs since the angels fell. You two broke Metatron out, remember?”

“That’s true; if we can get to the Gate, we might have a start.”

“Sorry to kill the momentum,” Castiel interjected. “But that Gate could be _anywhere_. Hell, far as I know it might be inaccessible. The angels here don’t need it like the ones back home. _And_ , even if we find it, breaking into Heaven is complicated. Human souls die the second they cross the threshold; none of us would make it except Jack and I—and that’s debatable. A Nephilim has never entered Heaven before; _he_ might not even survive that trip.”

“Well, personally, I like those odds. Comparatively, of course. At least we could have _someone_ in, right? Hell of a lot better than nobody,” Bobby scoffed.

“Logistically, though, it doesn’t check out,” Castiel insisted. “It would take far too long to search the entire planet for a Gate to Heaven.”

“Angels,” Rufus grumbled. “So pessimistic.”

“It’s _not_ pessimism,” Castiel defended. “It’s a legitimate flaw in your thinking. If I could wing myself up to Heaven, don’t you think I would? We’d need to find a Gate, and a Gate can be moved _constantly_ —wherever the angels want it to be. It could take _decades_ to find one, if we even get that lucky.”

“Alright, so we do it another way,” Jack said with a shrug.

“Sure,” Castiel replied. “What do you suggest?”

“I did not say I had an _idea_ ,” Jack said, recoiling. “I just said that if we cannot do it _that_ way, we have to do it a different way.”

“Thank you, Jack,” Dean said with a roll of his eyes. “That was eye-opening.”

“There _might_ be something,” Castiel interrupted. “Assuming Jack can get me up there.”

“Alone?” Sam asked incredulously. “You’d never last.”

“Maybe, maybe not. _You_ certainly wouldn’t. We covered this; _I’m_ our only guarantee here, Sam. If the plan is to break in up there, that’s great, but none of you could survive it.”

“Yeah, and if we send you by yourself it’s a suicide mission,” Dean responded. “You’d have to swerve Douchestiel _and_ Lucifer—which, gotta be honest here, Cas, you aren’t too great at. And that’s assuming they don’t have Fifty Shades of Bodyguards up there waiting.”

“That was uncalled for. And in any case, once you come up with a better idea, I’ll be happy to hear it,” Castiel said calmly. “I didn’t say anyone had to _like_ it, but there’s nothing I can do about it, Dean. Human souls don’t survive a trip to Heaven; it’s as simple as that.”

“What if we drew them down here?” Bobby said, noting the Winchesters’ resistance to Cas’ current solution.

“Excuse me?” Sam, Dean, Rufus, and Castiel exclaimed together, looking over at Bobby with matching furrowed-brow expressions.

“You heard me. Get Luci and the Diamonds down here, and we handle them. Should give Feathers the time he needs to get Farrah out.”

“I need a drink,” Dean said exasperatedly, opening the cooler and pulling out two bottles, one of which he set at his feet. “I need drink _s_.”

“You have to know that’s suicidal,” Castiel said to Bobby stiffly.

“Is it?” Sam interjected, seeing Bobby’s perspective. “I mean, Jack’s staying here, right?”

Castiel nodded slowly.

“And that kid’s a time bomb,” Bobby finished. “Not to mention, Lucifer’s _all_ over him. He should be enough to keep us well out of harm’s way.”

“And where does that leave Cas?” Dean asked.

“In Heaven with Farrah,” Bobby replied nonchalantly.

“Fantastic.”

“Dean, it’s fine,” Castiel assured.

“It’s _stupid_ , Cas. You’re breaking into _Heaven_ without any back-up.”

“Yeah, maybe. But it’s a different Heaven than the one we know.”

“Oh, yeah, you’re right. It’s a Heaven run by Satan himself. Well, sure, that changes everything. Go right on ahead.”

“Stop acting so childish, Dean. You forget this Heaven is partially under my alternate’s control. And since the plan is to lure him down here with Lucifer, the angels would have no reason to be suspicious, because I’d be the only Castiel upstairs.”

“Okay. But how exactly do we plan on bringing them down here, hm? They already got what they wanted.”

“They got _half_ of what they wanted,” Rufus countered. “Second Lucifer laid eyes on that kid, they were after him too.”

“I figured that part was implied,” Bobby muttered. He cleared his throat and looked around the cooler. “So we clear then?”

Dean rolled his eyes, but he nodded in agreement, as did the rest of the party.

“Hello?”

They heard a woman’s voice at the door, and, when they turned around, all they could see in the frame was two silhouettes, a man and a woman’s.

They looked back at one another. With pursed lips, Dean yelled back, “We’re closed.”

“We aren’t here for trouble,” the man replied stiffly. “I noticed there was no angel warding here, and I’ve been looking for Farrah for days now. Last I’d seen her, she went this direction. The rest of our Garrison has been found and escorted to Heaven by Lucifer and Castiel’s~ lackeys, but I was hoping that maybe her brand was still keeping her down here.”

“Wrong angel,” Dean replied.

“But how?” the man asked. “Farrah’s the only other angel down here. They’ve been swept up by the dozen and brought back upstairs. No one but us two managed to get away—that’s what they’ve been saying, of course.”

“Who are you?” Castiel asked.

They could hear a single footstep. When they looked back to the doorframe, the man’s silhouette had moved to slightly behind the woman’s. “I didn’t realize you were harboring Castiel~. Best be on our ways, then.”

“I don’t think so,” Rufus scoffed. “You come here—to _my_ place, looking for _my_ people—and you think, what? You’re getting away without showing your faces?”

“Besides, we can’t buy your story,” Bobby added. “You talk like you’re on your own, but we can see you have a partner there.”

“Oh, her? Just a human, gentlemen, a _hunter_. I help her; she helps me. She’s no threat, I promise.”

“Why don’t you step into the light where we can see you both better, and then we’ll see about that, hm?” Rufus suggested.

Neither foreigner moved.

“Alright, let’s try this again. Show yourselves.”

Evidently reluctantly, given their body language they obliged to Rufus’ demand and, taking as few steps as they could, entered the house and stood under the light by the front door.

The man was nothing more than a stranger. The woman, however, was far from.

“I’ll be damned,” Dean scoffed. He nudged his brother. “Guess you were right.”

Before them, as if nothing had happened, stood Mary Winchester. As she laid eyes on the crowd, she felt her heart skip a beat looking at Sam, Dean, and Castiel. Excited she ran toward them. Simultaneously, the man took a few steps back.

Castiel eyed him curiously and, after giving Mary the hug she insisted on, crossed the room to stand before him.

The man was quivering in Castiel’s presence, and it made Cas exceptionally uncomfortable.

“Stop that,” he pleaded, softening his voice to try and ease the man. Still, he could sense the grace in him, so, though his voice was calm, his muscles were tensed.

“The angels said you’ve been… displeased with my absence,” the man said, still shaking just as much.

Castiel put his head in his hands. “This is the _worst_ possible thing that could be happening,” he said under his breath. With a roll of his eyes, he looked up and grabbed the man by the shoulder with his right hand, gesturing to himself with the left. “ _I_ am not Castiel~,” he said slowly.

“Don’t lie to the man,” Dean yelled.

Castiel turned back to his comrade. “ _You_ are unhelpful,” he scorned. His eyes back on the man, he said, “Okay, fine. I _am_ Castiel. But I’m not _Castiel~_.”

The man simply eyed him quizzically.

Luckily for Cas, Mary intervened. “Remember what I told you about being from another dimension?” she asked him.

He nodded.

“Well, so is he. He’s _my_ Castiel, not yours.”

Castiel gestured toward her. “See, there, _that’s_ what I mean.”

The angel still looked skeptical, but he was no longer fearful. He extended a hand to Castiel. “Jofiel,” he said coolly.

Together, they walked back into the fray, intermingling with the rest of the crowd.

“So what happened?” Dean asked Mary once everyone had settled into a position. “How’d you get away?”

“Luck, mostly,” she replied with a shrug. She nodded towards Jofiel. “And him.”

Dean inclined his chin; Sam sat with his elbows propped up on his knees, looking deliberately at his mother.

“Lucifer _would_ have killed me eventually, I’m sure. But, like I said, I lucked out. Jofiel was out and about at the time. Caught the Devil’s attention right off; gave me my out. So while Lucifer was tangled up with Jofiel, I gave him the slip. Hasn’t caught up yet. Although I hear he’s… busy.”

After some further quick light conversation, they came to realize that they all were on a common mission: find Farrah and, preferably, stay alive.

As such, they joined forces. Adding Jofiel, specifically, helped ease some concerns about the logistical intricacies of their plan.

“Jofiel’s an angel,” Mary said lightly. “So he can get upstairs too.”

“ _And_ Castiel~ and Farrah have proven that angels here have working wings,” Castiel added. “Meaning we can get up there for _sure_.”

Jofiel eyed the angel beside him. “Beg your pardon?”

Castiel rolled his eyes. “The angels fell where I’m from. I’d show you my wings, but they’re not worth it.”

Jofiel shrugged. “Sure, fine, I can get us both up there. But I can’t promise a whole ton of time once I do. If Farrah was captured by Castiel~ himself, they probably took her to the Control Center—the intelligence base, where Naomi’s people work. And they guard that place like the Hope Diamond.”

“We don’t need time,” Dean assured.

As such, the plan was set. Jack would entice his father down to Earth, and, hopefully, Lucifer would bring his business partner with him. Together, Sam, Dean, Mary, Jack, Rufus, and Bobby would keep them distracted while Jofiel and Castiel went to work upstairs.

What ever could go wrong?


	16. The Song Remains the Same

It was true what Jofiel had said. Heaven had been rounding up the wayward angels on Earth like herds of cattle, directing them to the ranch that, in this case, was a heavily supervised desk post in Heaven. Tech support with wings, Lucifer liked to say.

It hadn’t gone unnoticed that Castiel~ and Lucifer had failed to bring back Jofiel. The gossip also said Farrah had eluded them as well, for they had kept her capture under wraps pending the return of all their brethren to Heaven.

They’d been feuding over Team Free Will since their encounter—namely, over Castiel’s~ stunt double. Lucifer insisted that, as the angels from his timeline were, with the exception of him, incapable of flight, Cas was of no import; Castiel~ posited that, flightless or otherwise, their loose duckling would be bad publicity if word got out—not to mention, he was incessantly irritating. Though the two hadn’t interacted since they’d taken Farrah, the thought of another—not to mention weaker—Castiel~ was infuriating.

Cas shared this sentiment.

It created quite the tension in Heaven, and it was felt Garrison to Garrison. Though no angels but Lucifer and Castiel~ themselves knew anything of it, when their higher-ups were at odds, angels had a way of noticing. No one was picking a side, as no one had information or inclination, but they were still on edge nonetheless.

In the face of all this, Farrah had, essentially, taken up the position Michael had in his waning hours—office jester. She’d been known to have a comeback to just about everything, and she put that talent to use as a method of entertaining herself.

She was rather bored, truth be told. She had prepared for carnage and blood and the occasional argument. Instead, as they dealt with political differences, they mostly left her alone, save for giving her a smack once in awhile if she said something particularly hard-hitting.

The Resistance (now including Team Free Will, Mary, Jack, and Jofiel) had refrained from allowing Jofiel to communicate any of their scheming up to Farrah. It gave them no pleasure to keep their imprisoned ally in the dark, but they were simply being tactical; there were ways to get angels to speak—completely against their will—and they were constantly concerned Castiel~, Lucifer, or a lower-raking official would try and hack into her.

She had, as a result of everything, been growing restless. Castiel~ and Lucifer were barely paying her any mind, and, far as she knew, her alliance had decided to continue without her—or was at a loss on how to reach her.

The most emotion she would feel would come whenever Lucifer and Castiel~ took their feuding to the Command Center, where they still had her bound to a chair. It was of note that Michael’s vessel and the design of his wings scorched into the furnishings were both very much still present, though Castiel~ and Lucifer had compromised and decided to, at least, move the vessel to a less inconvenient part of the room. As it had been, having a body sprawled across the desk was nothing more than a nuisance. Castiel~ still insisted it be removed entirely, seeing the corpse as but a disgraceful reminder of past failings. Lucifer saw it as a trophy.

Around two days after Jofiel and Mary joined the Resistance in their plans to swipe Farrah from her captivity, problems in Heaven began to come to a head, all just before her eyes.

Farrah jumped (as far as the chains binding her to her chair permitted) when the double doors to the Center flew open, slamming against the wall with such brute force they each knocked some of the trimming loose.

Castiel~ entered, unaccompanied and fuming.

Farrah smirked. “Trouble in paradise?”

“Not the time,” he growled to her, looking anywhere but her as he closed the doors behind him with a flick of his left wrist.

“A simple ‘yes’ would have been less rude, you know,” she replied. “Michael’s been gone, what, four days? And suddenly we act like heathens up here now? Where are we without our manners, Castiel~?”

“Do you ever stop talking?”

“I can,” she said lightly. “But forgive me—I’ve got nothing better to do, Castiel~. You and that _child_ you all up here allow to pass for an archangel don’t give me much to do. Too caught up in your own drama, it seems. So I don’t feel inclined to stop talking. Besides, I love our chats, Cassie~!”

“That makes one of us.”

Farrah sighed. “You have a captive audience, Castiel~. _Talk_ to me.”

Castiel~ replied with nothing but a scoff.

“You’re so elitist,” Farrah reprimanded. “Look—Lucifer giving you trouble? I don’t like him either, you know. And if you want me to stop talking, your best bet is to do the talking yourself. I’m done sitting in silence, Castiel~.”

He rolled his eyes and, in the blink of her eye, towered over her, holding his angel blade in his right hand. “I could end you,” he snarled.

“Yeah, but you won’t.”

“You sure?”

“Mhm. Know why? Because if you were going to, I wouldn’t be alive right now, honey. I ran with you years ago, as you were so quick to remind me before this all happened. I could read Michael, and I was at your command for _far_ longer than I was his. You really think I never figured you out too? I know how you work, Castiel~. So if you won’t kill me, the only way you’re going to silence me is by talking to me.”

He briskly ran the knife down her cheek.

Though she yelped at the initial burn, her pain produced a laugh. “You’ve never really been that threatening, Castiel~. I think we both know that much.”

He gave her another wound, this time to the abdomen.

She laughed yet again. “You keep brandishing your little toy,” she jeered. “At the end of the day, you still won’t do it.”

He drove the blade into her knee.

The doors to the Command Center opened once again, and, at the sound, Castiel~ had flown over to Michael’s body, covertly sliding the archangel blade out of the fatal wound to his chest. Castiel~ held it behind his back, eyeing Lucifer as he stepped through the doors.

Upon seeing what Castiel~ had done to Farrah in his absence, Lucifer shook his head in her direction, a smug little curve in his lips.

“I could have done _so_ much better,” he said with a sigh.

“Please,” Farrah replied. “Castiel’s~ such a bore.”

“She’s got a point, you know,” Lucifer taunted, staring down his partner.

“Lucifer, enough,” Castiel~ scolded as if he were a mother talking to her unruly son. “Can’t we talk this all through?”

“See?” chimed Farrah. “A bore. Hey! Luci,” she said, looking from Castiel~ to Lucifer. “Mind helping me out here? Your lover forgot to remove his trinket from my leg.”

“I think it looks nice on you,” Lucifer retorted. “Brings out those eyes.”

“Flattering,” she cooed.

He rolled his eyes and elegantly crossed over to her, taking the blade from her knee. As she was about to thank him, he leaned in, pressing down on her wound with his hand. “Don’t be getting any bright ideas, now, Farrah. Only reason I took this out for you is because it turns out _you’re_ not the problem this season.”

“Well, that won’t do,” she pouted.

He gave her a smirk, his eyes glowing a garnet red. She could hear a faint hissing somewhere off in the distance.

“So, what?” Castiel~ scoffed. “That’s the plan? You’re just going to take me out?”

Lucifer shrugged. “I’ve decided to cut the dead weight. You got me here, which, thanks, by the way. But now you’re nothing more than an irritant.”

“Funny,” Castiel~ replied, now advancing ever so slightly towards Lucifer. “That’s what I was saying to Michael.”

“Where’s the poetry?” Farrah interrupted, looking eagerly between the adversaries with wide eyes and frantic motions.

“What?” the men asked in sync. They glared at one another before looking back over to their captive.

“I mean, it’s all very Shakespearean, is it not? But where’s the _artistry_? This is _not_ the theatre dear old Father would have intended.”

The men ignored her commentary and focused once again on each other.

“I’m going to kill you,” Lucifer threatened, taking a single step towards Castiel~. “Then I’m going to kill her.” He took another step. “And _then_ I’m going to go to Earth.” Another step. “And I’m going to take my son and kill whoever gets in my way.”

“Father of the year, everyone!” Farrah cheered. “Your move, Castiel~.”

“Shut _up_ ,” Lucifer and Castiel~ commanded in unison.

Castiel~, saying nothing, flew over and posted himself behind Lucifer. He made to drive the blade through Lucifer’s back, but his attempt was stopped midway as Lucifer turned around and grabbed him by the wrist.

“ _Really_ , Castiel~? An _angel_ blade? You don’t _honestly_ think you have a shot against me, do you?” Lucifer scoffed, smacking the blade out of his hand.

Castiel~ dodged adeptly as Lucifer reached to stab him with his blade as a favor for Castiel~ trying to do the same to him.

“ _Arch_ angel blade, Lucifer,” he snarled, diving to the ground to retrieve his weapon, all the while evading the kicks and punches Lucifer delivered.

“See, Cassie~, I’ll have to call your bluff here. The only _arch_ angel blades in play are mine and Michael’s, and they’re both otherwise occupied.” Lucifer looked over to Michael’s body. “You bastard,” he growled, noticing the blade had been removed.

“You should keep better track of your things, Lucifer. I told you we should have done away with that body.”

“It’s not that _body_ that’s the problem, Cassie~. It’s _you_.”

“How mature,” Castiel~ scoffed, getting to his feet. “But now that we’ve established we’re on an even playing field here, how about you drop the shtick? Luci—this isn’t even your dimension. Why don’t you take that son of yours and go _home_?”

“Why do that when I could take that son of mine and rule yours?”

Castiel~ made to impale Lucifer through the chest, but his attempt was, again, deflected. Lucifer kicked his adversary in the shin before hitting him in the neck, knocking him to his knees. He towered over him.

“Angels,” he sighed. He crouched down to be eye-to-eye with Castiel~. “The _arrogance_ ,” he growled, giving Castiel~ a deep cut down his cheek.

Undeterred, Castiel~ spat the blood pooling in his mouth at his former partner.

“ _Cute_ ,” Lucifer chuckled. “Real cute, Cassie~.”

He held his blade over his head, prepared to end the feud once and for all.

Still, he was stopped in his tracks when he felt Castiel’s~ blade pierce directly through his heart. A bright flash of light burst from his vessel before he fell to the floor. However, given that Castiel~ wasn’t an archangel, the blade hadn’t killed him. To truly lay the devil to rest Castiel~ needed to call in a favor from his dear friend Raphael, who took Lucifer—still living—off to Heaven’s Prison to handle things his own way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (;


	17. The Thing

News of Lucifer’s demise had been kept under wraps. Castiel~, noting how his brothers and sisters had reacted initially the last time there had been a regime change, was not exceptionally keen on having the same experience.

In the meantime, Castiel~ had established control of Heaven how he saw fit, and he took care to let Farrah know exactly what her standing was in his Heaven.

Michael’s body was torched immediately.

Down on Earth, the Winchesters and company were preparing to follow through—finally. It had been three days since Farrah’s capture, and they’d hoped the situation would have been resolved sooner than that.

“Alright,” Dean said with a breath and an exaggerated hand gesture, pacing the front room where he and the others were congregated, with the exception of the angels who were just outside the window. They’d opened it so Jofiel and Castiel would be able to hear the conversation indoors. “Cas, Jofiel—once Jack does his… _thing_ , you two get your asses to Heaven. Right away.”

Castiel and Jofiel both gave him curt nods.

Dean clapped his hands together, now stopping and facing Jack, extending his arms in the Nephilim’s direction. “It’s all you,” he said.

Jack nodded. He tried to reach within himself and tap into the connection to his father, but it seemed the line had gone dark. He contorted his face to display his confusion. Irritable, his eyes flashed yellow as he dug deeper.

The angels took that as their cue, and Jofiel flew the pair of them up to Heaven, to the entrance of the intelligence base, where Jofiel had said Farrah would most likely be. Also as he’d said, it was full of guards.

“What now?” Castiel asked him, his voice hushed as he looked suspiciously around to the hordes of other angels.

“Act natural, I suppose?” Jofiel replied with a shrug.

It was the best solution, as they had no knowledge of whether the people they’d left downstairs had succeeded in their mission to bring Lucifer and Castiel~ to them.

Though they walked as if it were reversed, Jofiel, having been called to questioning multiple times under Michael, directed Castiel through the passageways. They were tense as they made their way through, not daring to let eyes off the guards. To their relief, none of the angels paid them much mind. As it turned out, having his double acting as the man in charge was now an asset to Castiel, as he was able to go wherever he pleased in this Heaven completely uninterrupted. He looked at Jofiel as they approached the grand, silver double doors to the Command Center and, with a shrug, pulled their handles to open them.

They were greeted by blinding light from within the Center. Castiel~ had always appreciated the aesthetic of high light levels. Always thought of it as more heavenly than the darker settings Lucifer swore by.

Once their eyes had adjusted to the light, they noticed the room was, fortunately, vacant—save for Farrah, still roped to the same chair and now dripping with her own blood. The solitary time with an agitated Castiel~ had not been kind.

Upon seeing Cas, she reflexively recoiled, thinking it was the Castiel~ who had torn her vessel to ribbons parading the capture of Jofiel like a trophy.

“Where is he?” Castiel asked her quietly, hastily, looking around the room.

“Where is _who_?”

“Castiel~,” Jofiel clarified. He nodded towards the angel beside him. “This is… well, Castiel, but not—”

“But not _Castiel~_. We’ve met,” she finished, sighing in relief. “Hell if I know. He doesn’t say much.”

“Did it work then? Did he and Lucifer go after Jack?” Jofiel prodded, now standing behind her and undoing her binds while Cas stood guard, holding both his own blade and Jofiel’s.

“What?” she scoffed. “No, no—Lucifer’s _dead_.”

“ _What_?” Castiel asked, whipping his head around to face her.

“Watched it myself. They turned on one another, and Cassie~ managed to pull out the win. Look, I was as shocked as you are. But, yeah, that’s the big news in Heaven. He must be keeping it quiet; I guess he thinks conducting double mutiny wouldn’t put him in the best light,” she informed. When Jofiel had successfully freed her from the chair, she sighed, standing up and stretching toward the ceiling.

“Let me heal that,” Jofiel instructed her.

“Right,” she replied, assuming a normal posture while Jofiel grazed a hand over her vessel, sealing the wounds before their eyes. “Thanks, J.”

He nodded, but their interaction was halted by the sound of multiple pairs of footsteps approaching the door.

“ _Shit_ ,” Farrah whispered to herself.

“Everything’s fine,” Castiel assured, though he was uncertain himself.

“C—I’m gonna call you C, avoids the confusion—Cassie~ never left Heaven,” she said lowly, her breathing picking up in weight.

“ _Shit_ ,” he whispered. He pursed his lips and tightened his hands around the blades before turning around to face Farrah and Jofiel. “Go,” he commanded.

“ _Pardon_?” she asked, aghast. “He’ll _murder_ you, C. He’s taken down Michael _and_ Lucifer since that damn portal opened. You won’t last a second.”

He shrugged. “Better one of us than all of us.”

“Damn martyrs,” she demeaned, rolling her eyes. “You’re insane, you know that? You can’t even _fly_.”

He shrugged again and now looked directly at Jofiel. “Get the hell out of here. Take her, and get back to the others. I’ll handle this.”

They could hear the handles to the double doors twist.

“Go _now_ ,” he yelled to Jofiel, who, eyes wide, put an hand on Farrah’s shoulder and flew her back down to the house in Portland.

“What the _hell_ are you thinking?” she scolded.

The people in the house jumped slightly at their arrival, initially oblivious to the fact that they were (still) an angel short.

The reunion was short-lived, but it was still cloyingly sweet by hunters’ standards.

“Look who’s alive,” Bobby said with a warm smile.

“Barely,” Farrah scoffed. She took him in embrace, locking eyes with Rufus. “Hey there, stranger,” she greeted.

“You hug me, and I will stab you right up your feathered ass,” he threatened, though he was boasting a smile that matched Bobby’s.

She rolled her eyes, letting go of Bobby and looking around at the group around her.

It was Dean who noticed Castiel’s absence first.

“Farrah, Jofiel,” he addressed slowly, trying to avoid sounding accusatory right off the bat. “Where’s Cas?”

Farrah sighed, tilting her head to the side as she looked him in the eyes. Her expression fell. “He’s… upstairs,” she admitted.

Dean raised an eyebrow. “Upstairs?” he repeated disbelievingly. “You left him _upstairs_?”

“Hold on—he _chose_ to stay there,” she retorted.

“Right. And what exactly would he do that for?”

“Someone was coming, and he decided to hold them off, buy Jofiel and me some time.”

“Sounds like him,” Sam interjected with a somewhat irritated sigh.

“Okay, here’s the thing you need to know about Cas,” Dean growled, looking between Farrah and Jofiel. “Just because he wants to do something, doesn’t make it a good idea.”

“Wait,” Mary said, staring down Jofiel and Farrah with narrow eyes. “Why didn’t anyone show? We had Jack reaching out to Lucifer the entire time.”

“Oh, right,” Jofiel started. “Lucifer’s dead.”

A storm began outside as, up in Heaven, Castiel took on the angels.

Initially, he was holding up just fine. There were now three dead at his feet, and, as it appeared, none were coming soon. He paused to regain his composure, looking around at the carnage.

After a few seconds the doors opened yet again, this time revealing Castiel’s double.

The pair stared one another down for a few seconds, Cas’ grip on his blades tightening with each passing instant.

“I wasn’t expecting company,” said Castiel~ coolly. He craned his neck to look around at the chair Farrah had occupied. “Suspected as much,” he sighed.

He flew over and landed directly in front of his counterpart.

Cas said nothing in response; he simply continued to stare at his opponent, still slightly put off by their shared identity.

Castiel~ hit Cas’ shoulder, knocking the other angel to his knees. He smirked down at his double, shaking his head. “Here we are again,” he sighed, retrieving the archangel blade he’d used on Lucifer from his coat.

Cas made a move at his double’s torso, but, as the same tactic had resulted in Lucifer’s death at his hands, Castiel~ was prepared for it. He swerved it, though the blade still grazed his left arm.

Successful or not, it gave Cas the opportunity he needed to get himself back to his feet.

“We have the same playbook, you know,” Castiel~ scoffed. “If you’re going for the element of surprise, I’m afraid you’ll find it’s… pretty much impossible.”

Cas shrugged, flipping the blade in his left hand to hold it more firmly. “I’ll take my chances with brute force, then,” he growled.

“Ah, she speaks!” Castiel~ exclaimed. “Honestly, I didn’t expect an alternate… me… would be so suicidal. You’re a bit of a letdown, you know that?”

Cas rolled his eyes. “So I’ve heard,” he replied dryly. “But I’ve been up against worse. _You_ don’t scare me. Like you said, surprise is off the table, and I know from _personal_ experience that surprise is just about the only card you got.”

Castiel~ laughed lightly to himself and gave Cas a wink. He teleported across the room. “But here’s where you’re mistaken, Castiel,” he taunted before flying to a different corner. “I can fly,” he bragged, flying somewhere new between each word, stopping just in front of his opponent. “You’re a little out of your league.”

He flew behind Cas and grabbed his counterpart by the hair with his left hand, using his right to twist the blade out of Cas’ right hand. Castiel~ gave him a swift kick to the shin, which dropped Cas back to his knee. He then took the blade from Cas’ left hand and twirled it in his own as he spoke, putting a hand on Cas’ shoulder and kneeling down in front of him, holding the blade to his neck. “We’re going to have a _lot_ of fun, you and I.”


	18. Bring 'em Back Alive

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm early; I know. I'll be out of town tomorrow, so enjoy.

“Alright,” Castiel~ sighed, growing increasingly impatient the longer his hostage refused to play his game. “We’ll try this _again_ , and maybe you’ll get it right this time.”

He had already thrust the angel blade through Cas’ right shoulder, so he grabbed it and twisted it, inclining his chin as his double cried out.

Once Castiel~ took his hand from the blade again, Cas was panting, glaring upwards and covered in his own blood. “Honestly, just kill me already,” he pleaded.

Castiel~ was pacing now. He had his captive handcuffed and chained down, but he, deciding to take extra precaution, had set it up in a vacant cell in Heaven’s prison. That way, should he leave for one reason or another, he could be more certain the other angel stayed put.

Upon hearing the reply, Castiel~ scoffed. “I considered it,” he said coolly, stopping his pacing to kneel down in front of Castiel so he could look up into his prisoner’s eyes as he reached up and grabbed the blade, slowly drawing it from Cas’ skin. “But I figure you’re more useful alive. You have intel, and I want it.”

“Come on,” Castiel moaned irritably. “You _have_ to know that won’t work, right? We’re the same person.”

Castiel~ rolled his eyes, standing up and swiftly whipping the blade the rest of the way from Cas’ shoulder, causing the latter to cringe as much as the binds permitted. “I know, Castiel; I know. You’re _loyal_ , yeah?” He laughed to himself, pacing again. “It’s not _loyalty_ , you know. It’s self-righteousness—martyrdom, really. Hell, maybe it’s even sheer stupidity. The three are really one in the same. But, hate to say, whatever it is—it’s not simply loyalty, you poor, delusional soul.”

Castiel spat the blood in his mouth to the floor, refusing to acknowledge his double’s remark and entertain his psychological charades.

“Classic Castiel,” Castiel~ chuckled. He paused behind the other angel, bending down to whisper in his ear. “I know what that means, you know. You agree, but you’re too damn ashamed to admit it. We’re the same person.”

“As fun as this is, I’d appreciate it if you… you know, stopped.”

“Oh, gladly,” Castiel~ replied, repositioning himself in front of Cas. “But that’s all on you. Help me out, and I’ll… you know, stop.”

They’d been at it like this ever since Castiel had been captured initially, which was roughly two days ago.

Castiel’s~ original plan was to end his doppelgänger on the spot. After all, he’d been nothing but a pain, and he’d delivered himself alone. It was too good an opportunity. However, after thinking it over, he realized that, given Farrah and her clan were his primary threat, _and_ given that Castiel 2.0 had access to said clan, having his double around would be an asset.

And so he brought him there, to Heaven’s prison, and he’d been attempting to carve out answers for two days now. So far, it had been fruitless.

Castiel~ sighed, agitated. “Alright, fine,” he growled. “Back-up plan it is. Hold this,” he said, running the blade back through the open wound in Cas’ shoulder.

He turned around and closed the cell door behind him, clapping his hands together like he was dusting them clean. He walked with the utmost of purpose to the Intelligence Center, bursting into Naomi’s office as if it were his own.

She jumped; the loudness of the doors suddenly opening had jarred her. She rose to her feet, initially on the offensive until she laid eyes on the intruder. Clearing her throat, she brushed herself off and reassumed her seat in her chair, crossing her legs and her arms as she looked up to him

“Castiel~,” she greeted with a polite nod. “What is it?”

“Interrogation,” Castiel~ replied stiffly.

Naomi pursed her lips. “Of course,” she said mockingly. “Never anything personable with you, is it?”

“Give me whatever works,” he said, ignoring her jokes. “Be creative.”

She arched a brow as she stood up to cross her office and retrieve something. “Tough one to crack?”

“You have no idea,” Castiel~ growled.

“Well, whoever it is must take after you,” she laughed to herself. She pulled down a box full of _Enhanced Questioning Devices_ to hand to him. “You always were hard to get in line.”

Castiel~ rolled his eyes, taking the crate from her. He looked at its contents, frowning, then looked back up to her. “I don’t know how to use any of this, Naomi.”

“Oh, I know,” she scoffed. “It’s intentional.”

“That is unhelpful.”

“Maybe if you go alone,” she agreed. “I want to come.”

He arched a brow.

“Come on, Castiel~. I haven’t left the Intelligence Wing in _months_. And you’ve managed to capture yourself one hell of a prisoner apparently. I want in,” she said with a shrug.

“Fine,” he conceded, handing her the crate back.

She smirked, taking the box. The two exited her office, opting to go the long way to the prison at Naomi’s request, as she’d wanted to do some sightseeing along the way.

“So who is the poor soul?” she asked.

“He’s… it’s complicated.”

She rolled her eyes. “Complicated. Difficult. Quite the challenge you caught, Castiel~.”

“He’s important.”

“I’m sure he is. No one unimportant would hold out on you. You’re… thorough.”

Castiel~ smirked as his reply.

As the pair approached the entrance to the prison, he decided to brace her.

“Alright,” he said, stopping her by putting his hand to her shoulder. “This might be… surprising,” he informed.

“ _Surprising_? Castiel~, I have programmed and reprogrammed every angel in Heaven. Nothing surprises me anymore. You pretty much see everything doing my work.”

“Well, not this.”

She rolled her eyes. “Just go.”

He shrugged and turned around, opening the doors to the entrance. The first few cells were vacant and falling apart.

Castiel was held in the sixth one down. Upon seeing him, Naomi nearly dropped the crate she was carrying.

Castiel~ smirked. “I told you he’s surprising.”

She slowly placed her supplies on the ground outside the cell and moved directly in front of Castiel’s cell, still in front of the bars. She was eyeing him curiously before turning to her boss. “How?” she asked incredulously.

“It’s a long story,” both Castiels said simultaneously.

“Well, now I understand what your problem is, Castiel~,” she chuckled. “Like I said, you always were hard to get in line.” She turned back to the Cas in the cell but continued to address Castiel~. “What do you want from him?”

“Anything,” he replied coldly. “Farrah, Jofiel, and a group hunters—including my double—have started a little… uprising. I want to know about it—everything about it.”

She nodded, grabbing her tools and opening the cell.

“I was going to kill him,” Castiel~ admitted. “But I get the feeling impersonating him is a better move.”

She nodded again. “Ah, I see. Which is why you need all this information,” she said, expositing to herself as she dug through her supplies for the appropriate instrument.

“Correct,” Castiel~ affirmed.

“Alright, well, if it’s not out-of-turn to suggest, would you mind vacating?”

“Pardon?”

“Vacating. Leaving. Head downstairs awhile, why don’t you? I’ll communicate information with you as I find it. It’s more efficient. I do my best work in solitude, you know.”

Castiel~ rolled his eyes, but, again, he obliged. “Alright.”

At that, he flew from Heaven down to Portland. He landed a good distance from their hideout, as he wanted to give himself some time to come up with a believable alibi. After all, it wasn’t as if his double was able to fly down from Heaven as he was.

He began trekking towards the Resistance’s safe house, thinking up his out.

Meanwhile, the Resistance was still at a loss on how to retrieve their missing angel. It was becoming a routine for them, it appeared.

“Damn it, Cas,” Dean sighed. “Let him out of our sight for twenty minutes, and the man goes missing.”

“He’s _not_ missing,” Farrah corrected. “He’s either imprisoned or dead.”

“Pick one.”

“Alright. My bet is he’s dead.”

“Reassuring.”

She shrugged. “I don’t know what to tell you. Odds are, that bastard took one look at C and drove an angel blade right through that heart of his, and you know it.”

“He didn’t,” Castiel~ interrupted, arriving at the door. In order to play his new part sufficiently, he softened his posture slightly.

“ _Damn_ it, Cas,” Dean exclaimed.

“Nice to see you, too.”

“What _happened_?” Farrah asked, furrowing her brows as she looked him up and down. “How’d you get out?”

“I, uh—I found a gate,” he lied.

“A _gate_?” Sam scoffed. “ _Now_ he finds a gate.”

“They’re easier to locate in Heaven,” all three angels—Castiel~, Farrah, and Jofiel—replied in unison.

“Well, where’d it spit you out?” Sam asked.

“My guess is the one in Salem,” Farrah said coolly. “It’d give him time to get the hell out and walk here.”

“You could let me tell my own story,” Castiel~ teased.

“Where’s the fun in that?” she taunted.

“It doesn’t matter. You’re back, which means we have one less thing to worry about,” Sam interrupted.

“Right,” Castiel~ replied curtly. “Of course.”

At that moment, he received his first message from Naomi. “The subject has been cracked. I can find out whatever you need.”


	19. Funeralia

By “The subject has been cracked,” Naomi meant “He’s unconscious.” She had a way with her instruments. She’d burned through his consciousness, and using her cunning and her knowledge of angels, she was able to break into the subconscious and retrieve whatever she wanted from him. Starting with…

“Jack,” Castiel~ told her. He was outside, isolated as the rest of the collective was in the house still. “What does the man have on Jack? Kid’s related to Lucifer, and he’s more powerful. I don’t trust it as far as I could throw it.”

“I’m on it,” she assured. She picked up a peg and drilled it into the comatose angel’s temple, which shot his head upright. She inclined her chin, pursing her lips. “Jack,” she whispered, taking a step back and crossing her arms.

“Lucifer’s child. Nephilim. Unspeakable power.”

She rolled her eyes, giving her subject and exasperated sigh. “Yes, I _know_ , Castiel. I need _more_ ,” she seethed.

“Lucifer’s child. Nephilim. Unspeakable power.”

“Damn,” she muttered. She stepped back to her position directly in front of him, kneeling down to fish through her box of toys. She dug through the chrome instruments before pulling out a needle, a personal favorite of hers. “Sit still,” she told her subject as she rose to her feet and stood over him, approaching his eye with the instrument before being interrupted by Castiel~.

“Well?” he asked.

“I’m working on it,” she replied. “He’s only told me what we already know.”

“Work harder, Naomi.”

“I’m doing my best, Castiel~. Angels are finicky. You have to get this stuff just right, or it won’t work.”

“Well, get it right then.”

“I _am_ , Castiel~. Maybe he doesn’t know anything else.”

On Earth, Castiel~ was pacing, mulling over his circumstances. Eventually, the angels in Heaven were going to notice his absence—and Lucifer’s. At the time, the only ones who knew were he and Naomi. He was keeping it under wraps until they’d broken more ground with Cassie 2.0, but he knew that was only viable for a certain amount of time, and the window was getting increasingly more narrow.

He rolled his eyes and said to Naomi, “Change of plans.”

She had, in the time it took Castiel~ to make up an alternate plan, bored into her subject’s right eye. Hearing his message, she removed the needle, wiping the blood off of his face and standing up straight, crossing her arms again, careful not to hold the bloody needle to her clothing. “Yes, Castiel~?” she asked stiffly.

“Go back to your post… Send down an angel. I don’t care who.”

“And… him?”

“He’s alright where he is. Leave him.”

“Alright, Castiel~,” she agreed, but she had reservations, and Castiel~ could note them in her voice.

“I know what I’m doing, Naomi. In the meantime, keep the ship afloat.”

“What’s going on, Castiel~?”

“You’ll know when it happens, Naomi.”

“What do I do?”

“Keep the other angels in line. Take my place while I’m down here. It won’t be long, Naomi; you can handle things for the time being.”

“Fine. But what do I tell the angels?”

“Anything.”

“Don’t be stupid.”

He didn’t respond to her.

She sighed, looking Castiel up and down with a skeptical, pursed-lip glare. “You Castiels are all the same,” she said to him, shaking her head. She slowly slid the pegs from his skull and detached the metal headpiece, working quickly and quietly as he was beginning to regain consciousness the second it was removed. Carelessly, she threw everything she was holding into her crate, picked it up, and slid out of the cell door, slamming it shut behind her.

He woke up just when she’d left the prison.

After making a quick stop at her office to return her supplies, Naomi flew to Heaven’s Gardens to call the angels to attention.

“Castiel~ is currently on the floor,” she informed. “He’ll be back, but his stay is… indefinite. Anyone who reports to Castiel~ will report to me until he returns.”

A few angels had congregated near her after receiving her transmissions.

“And if we report to Lucifer?” asked Josiah, arching his eyebrow.

“Well, if you report to Lucifer, you’ve been reporting to Castiel~,” she said coolly. “Lucifer is… gone.”

“ _Gone_?”

“Yes. Lucifer is… he’s gone. That’s all you need to know. If you report to Castiel~—including those who reported to Lucifer—you report to me until Castiel~ returns.”

“Naomi, we need more—”

“That’s all you need to know. Get back to work, Josiah.”

He scoffed at her, but the angels all obliged.

Naomi, knowing from her prior interaction with Castiel~, intentionally only communicated with those angels still in Heaven, knowing Farrah and Jofiel to be plotting an insurrection against Castiel’s~ regime.

Still, she hadn’t expected Jack to have gotten her message.

On Earth, the Nephilim, as he had when he initially saw Castiel, was doubled over himself, clutching his head as it throbbed. Hearing angel radio had always been painful for him; hearing foreign angel radio was worse.

Jofiel was the only one in his presence at that time. Farrah had gone outside with Castiel~, and the humans were fast asleep, leaving just the two of them.

“Jack?” Jofiel asked cautiously, hesitantly approaching the kid with his arms outstretched defensively. “Everything alright, kid?”

Jack nodded, though his temples were still aching. “Yes.”

“You want to talk about it?”

“There is nothing to say.”

“Look, Jack. I know I’m… new. But you need to work with me, not against me. What the hell happened?”

“It is not that I do not trust you, Jofiel. But what happened was not important. When angels communicate, I can hear it too. And it hurts.”

“Wait—the angels were communicating?”

Jack nodded, looking up to Jofiel. “Yes. But it was not anyone I know. It was a new voice—I have never heard her before.”

“Her?”

“Yes.”

“Did you catch a name? Maybe I know her.”

“It began with an ‘N’…” Jack said, racking his brain.

“Natalya? She’s one of Castiel’s~ people; she does all sorts of things for him—maybe she does his messaging too?”

“No, not Natalya; I have heard her before. Nao… Naomi?”

“ _Naomi_ was communicating with the angels?”

“She was.”

“What was _Naomi_ doing talking to Heaven, Jack?”

Jack shrugged. “Is that bad?”

“It’s… unusual. Naomi works Intelligence—head of the department, sort of a big name in Heaven. Both notoriously and reverently. Naomi’s gotten into each and every one of us. But she’s not big on mass communication. If she wants to get a word out, she… has her own way of doing things. Not one for doing much herself unless there’s bleeding involved. So I repeat. What was _Naomi_ doing talking to Heaven, Jack?”

“She was talking about Castiel~—the one with wings.”

“ _Was_ she now? And what was she saying?”

“Did you not hear her too?”

Jofiel shook his head. “They must have excommunicated me and Farrah. Angels are dicks that way; keeps the traitors from getting their information.” He scoffed, looking the kid up and down. “Not that that matters with _you_ here, breaking into their frequencies.”

Jack narrowed his eyes in confusion, but he didn’t have a response. Instead, he just told Jofiel what he’d heard. “She said that Castiel~ is ‘on the floor.’ I do not know what that means, but she told people to ‘report to her.’”

“Damn,” Jofiel said. “Big man in Heaven’s on Earth.”

Jack raised his eyebrows. “What does that mean for us?”

“Whatever we damn well want it to, kiddo. But obviously Naomi didn’t tell Farrah and me for a reason, right? Means he doesn’t want us to know. We have an _advantage_ , Jack.”

“Advantage?”

“Yes. We find the bastard, and we can take this whole fight to him. And he won’t have immediate backup.”

Jack’s lips curled into a grin.

“I’ll go fetch Farrah and Cas,” Jofiel said coolly. “You wake the others. We need to get on this—the bigger the head start we get, the better.”

“Okay,” Jack replied with a curt nod. He headed off to where the hunters were asleep—a corner of the safe house littered with tattered mattresses.

Jofiel headed the other way, but before he’d even reached the door, Farrah came in—unaccompanied and fuming.

“Farrah?” he asked with furrowed brows.

“I don’t know _what’s_ with C today, but if he thinks he’s allowed to act whatever which way he wants, someone needs to check him.” She darted by Jofiel and to the corner where Jack was nudging Sam and Dean.

Jofiel narrowed his eyes and stared after her for a few seconds. Then, he rolled them and turned to the door, going outside to get the rest of their party.

“Castiel,” he said tentatively. “Is everything okay? I just ran into Farrah. She seemed… bothered. Should I be worried?”

“No.”

Jofiel was skeptical, but he responded with, “Figures. She gets like that sometimes. But anyway, we’ve gotten wind of a lead. Jack’s waking the rest of the Breakfast Club, and we’re all going to talk it all through inside.”

“Oh?” Castiel~ asked, his interest piqued. He crossed his arms, staring intently at Jofiel now. “What’s this _lead_ you have?”

“We can talk about it inside with the others, Castiel.”

“How about you just tell me now?”

Jofiel furrowed his brows. “Are you sure there’s nothing up with you, Castiel? You’re acting… off, I guess.”

“I’m just… tense. And I’m not in the mood to reconcile with Farrah right now. So if you could just tell me what this _lead_ is and leave me out of the group bonding, I’d appreciate it.”

“Yeah… Look, everyone’s had their differences with Farrah before, Cas. She’s not exactly easy to get along with.”

“She’s _impossible_.”

“ _But_ we all need to get over that right now. We all have a common enemy, remember? Your evil doppelgänger? Heaven? Ring a bell?”

Castiel~ rolled his eyes. Clearly he was going to get nowhere with Jofiel. “ _Fine_ ,” he conceded. He gestured towards the door. “Lead the way.”

“ _Thank_ you,” Jofiel sighed.

Once Jofiel turned his back on Castiel~, the other angel took out his blade and ran it through his back, glaring down at him.

Knowing the others would have seen the telltale flash of light, he threw the blade to the ground and faked a surprised exclamation. He smirked at his lackey, Ambriel, as she came out from her hiding position around the side of the house. As Castiel~ had said when she’d gotten there—as everyone else had been otherwise engaged inside—the sound of someone dying, whoever it may be, was her cue. She was tense, looking down to Jofiel.

“You did this,” Castiel~ mouthed to her, kicking the blade toward her.

She knelt down and picked it up, standing over Jofiel’s body.

The rest of the group burst out from the door, Jack and Farrah leading the pack.

“ _She_ did this!” Castiel~ exclaimed, pointing at Ambriel.

She gave a wink when Farrah began to approach and flew off to Heaven, dropping the blade on the ground beside Jofiel.

“Why didn’t you _stop _her, Castiel?” Farrah yelled, smacking him over the head.__

__“I _tried_. She took my blade—it’s what she killed him with.”_ _

__She ran inside, angered, followed by the people. Jack was eyeing Castiel~ suspiciously._ _

__“What?” Castiel~ asked him._ _

__“It… Nothing, Castiel.”_ _

__“Good. Then go in. I’ll handle this.”_ _

__Jack nodded, following the others inside._ _

__Castiel~ walked over to Jofiel’s body and knelt down before it, smirking. His plan was to draw the Resistance to Heaven—to split them up and give himself a homefield advantage; if that didn’t do the trick, he didn’t know what would._ _

____


	20. Unfinished Business

With Jofiel now out of play, priorities had altered slightly—specifically Farrah’s. She still wanted to give Castiel~ what he’d had coming for a long, long while, but she wanted to pause the Heavenly Insurrection bid for a short period to hunt down Jofiel’s (alleged) killer, Ambriel.

“She killed one of our _men_ ,” Farrah said incredulously, the only one of the group standing other than Castiel~, who was stood fairly removed from the rest of them. “One of her _kind_. She needs dealt with.”

“If she’s one of Castiel’s~, she’ll inevitably be ‘dealt with’ when we shut him down,” Rufus replied dryly.

“Look, you lot didn’t know Jofiel like I did, but he was a good angel. He _deserves_ to be avenged, damn it.”

“And he will be,” Bobby assured. “But, Farrah, she’s only a small part of the problem. Rufus is right; when we put down Castiel~, that should do her in too.”

Farrah scowled. “Just like it’ll ‘do in’ everyone else in Heaven. But Ambriel’s crossed a _line_ , don’t you get it? She _killed_ Jofiel; she’s not just any angel anymore.”

“Right, she did. But we can’t shift the _entire_ plan over to taking her out, and you know that. Because once we succeed, we’re still left with Castiel~ calling Heaven’s shots. And the whole point of ,em >forming this alliance was to stop that.”

“Do what you want,” Farrah conceded. “But the second I have the opportunity, I’m starting a manhunt for Ambriel.”

“Great. We’ll help.”

“ _After_ we get rid of the dictator,” Rufus clarified.

“Exactly,” Bobby agreed.

Farrah was still dissatisfied, but she stopped acting obstinate and assumed a seat between Bobby and Mary. She looked up to Castiel~ with narrow eyes. “Hey, stranger. You want to stop lurking and maybe contribute? You did nothing to stop Ambriel back there; might as well make yourself useful now, right?”

Castiel~ was about to protest, but Dean cut him off. “Enough, Farrah.”

“ _Enough_?” she exclaimed, raising her voice slightly. “You _saw_ him, Dean. I don’t know _what’s_ up with that angel of yours, but he needs to get himself back in line.”

“Last I checked, I saved your ass in Heaven. And Jofiel’s,” Castiel~ growled, finding it hard to keep in character with Farrah acting as she was.

“Yeah, well, fat lot of good that does him now, ain’t it?” she snarled, inclining her chin and shaking her head.

Castiel~ rolled his eyes but approached the party so as not to appear suspicious.

“Alright, Farrah, if you’ve got so many opinions, what do _you_ think we should do about Castiel~?” Bobby asked.

“You already know. I think we put him on hold until Ambriel’s dead.”

“Okay, say we actually decided to do that,” Bobby sighed. “How exactly do you think we should go about it?”

She looked to her hands.

“Interesting,” Bobby remarked. He shrugged and looked at the rest of the group. “Now would be the time to participate.”

Castiel~ was still intent on luring them to Heaven, to his domain, to get himself the upper hand should there be confrontation. As such, he suggested, “Isn’t it obvious? We go upstairs. Take the fight to him.”

Jack shook his head. “No need.”

Castiel~ narrowed his eyes at the Nephilim. “Oh?”

“Castiel~ is down here. On Earth.”

“And where did you get _that_ idea?”

“The angels,” Jack replied with a shrug. “I can hear them talking.”

Castiel~ was now perturbed, but he saved face, clearing his throat. “Pardon? You can hear the angels?”

“Yes. A woman—Naomi—said Castiel~ is on Earth. But, forgive me, I thought you knew that I can hear them already.”

“Naomi,” Castiel~ sighed, rolling his eyes. He curled his lips over his teeth for a second before adding, “And, you’re right. I did know that. It slipped my mind amongst the chaos. Anyway—back to the angels, yeah? You heard _Naomi_?”

“Yes. Jofiel said she is important.”

“Because she is,” Farrah said, intently staring at Jack.

“Did you catch anything else, Jack?” asked Dean.

“No,” Jack answered. “But Heaven is at her control until Castiel~ returns.”

“Shit, the world _is_ going to Hell in a handbasket,” Farrah commented under her breath. She rolled her eyes and looked around the collective. “Alright, well, if that’s the case, I say we pay Naomi a visit too. Sounds like she’s his backup generator.”

“You keep adding targets,” Mary sighed. “It’s exhausting. One at a time, please?”

“You lot _do_ know we’re fighting a war, yes? We go after Castiel~, that’s all well and good. But there are _thousands_ where he came from.”

“And we’ll deal with that later.”

“Look, this isn’t hard. Castiel~ is just an angel, yeah? He’s not Lucifer; he’s not Michael—not an _arch_ angel. He’s just a run-of-the-mill angel, like me or Jofiel, with an ego and a title. He’s not special. And he’s on Earth. So you find him and take the fight to him, and, in the meantime, Cas and I break into Heaven and take out Naomi. She doesn’t ever leave the place, and, personally, I’m more intimidated by her. She _knows_ how angels work; bitch _programmed_ us all. She needs handled. _Especially_ if she’s running the joint while Cassie’s~ on vacation.”

Castiel~ smirked slightly. Farrah’s plan played directly into his hands. “She makes a good point,” he said.

“See?”

The humans (and Jack) looked at one another. They couldn’t help but take Farrah’s idea into consideration. After all, she was the one with the most knowledge on how Heaven worked—seconded by Castiel(~), who’d taken her side.

“Alright,” Dean said, agreeing to her plan for the lot of them. “Your way it is.”

“ _Thank_ you,” Farrah sighed. She stood up. “If you don’t mind, I have a comrade to bury,” she said lowly.

Dean, Sam, Rufus, Bobby, and Mary quickly reassumed their prior sleeping positions, as their slumber had been abruptly interrupted to convene that meeting, leaving only Jack and Castiel~ awake and inside.

Jack was eyeing Castiel~ as he’d done outside after Jofiel was killed.

Castiel~ raised an eyebrow. “Can I help you?”

Jack looked back to the humans to make sure they were, in fact, at rest. After assessing that he and Castiel~ had no eavesdroppers, he looked at Castiel~ through dark slits of eyes. “Where is Castiel— _my_ Castiel?” he asked coolly.

“Excuse me?” Castiel~ scoffed.

“What have you done with him?”

“You’re out of your mind, kid.”

Jack shook his head. “I am not.”

“Really? Because you’re acting mental.”

“I am not,” Jack repeated. “Castiel never called me ‘kid’—not once.”

Castiel~ shrugged. “Don’t know what you want to hear. You haven’t been around me every second of every day, you know.”

“And he does not act so… condescending.”

“ _Condescending_?” Castiel~ scoffed, taking a step back in fake shock.

Jack nodded. “Condescending,” he affirmed. “You talk down to everyone. My father would not do that; that is not how he is.”

“Stress changes people.”

“ _Where_ is Castiel?”

“Right in front of you.”

“Really? Because I can feel him. I _know_ him, and you—you are not him. All I feel in you is coldness, and Castiel is… he is the opposite. He is warm.”

“You’re out of your mind, kid.”

“You already said that.”

“Well, it’s true.”

“And Jofiel.”

“What about Jofiel?”

“You either let him die or killed him yourself. And Castiel would never do either.”

“Wait, back up. Who says I did _either_ of those?”

“You did not _stop_ it.”

“I already told you people what happened. Ambriel took my blade. I was _defenseless_ against her,” he insisted.

“Castiel is stronger than that.”

“Oh, Christ. Give me a break, kid.”

“See, there you go acting weird again.”

“Jack. It’s _me_.”

“And it is awfully strange that our Castiel would start acting unlike himself just when the Castiel~ we are fighting against comes to Earth.”

“Coincidences happen.”

“Sam said they do not.”

“Yeah, well, Sam’s word ain’t the be-all, end-all.”

“And you are _still_ not acting like Castiel.”

“Give it a rest, Jack.”

“ _Where_ is Castiel?”

Castiel~ winked at the kid and left that as his reply, flying back up to Heaven then and there, and leaving the kid behind staring where Castiel~ had been with wide eyes.

“Where is Castiel?” Jack shouted, looking up to the sky.


	21. Beat the Devil

Jack was simply beside himself. He was, frankly, unsure what exactly to do, but as he stood frozen in place, a few things became glaringly evident.

First, Castiel~ was now back in Heaven, apparently.

Second, _Cas_ was still off-the-grid (and probably also up in Heaven).

Third, the entire plan was now nullified, what with the first and second realities.

Fourth, they were going to need more alcohol.

When he’d finally composed himself enough to move, he decided first to go fetch Farrah from outside, as he wanted to let the humans sleep as long as possible. He walked tensely, watching his feet as he approached the door. Grabbing the knob, he took a deep breath and calmed his nerves before straightening his posture and heading out to find Farrah.

It was not too hard to locate her, as she hadn’t gone far. Actually, she hadn’t gone anywhere. She was still posted next to Jofiel’s body, which was lying in the same place it had been left, but the angel blade protruding from his torso was now in Farrah’s hand.

“Farrah,” he said, keeping his voice steady as he neared her. “We have a bit of a problem.”

“We always have a bit of a problem, Jack.”

“Okay, but we have _more_ of a problem.”

Farrah sighed, rolling her eyes and dropping the blade to the ground. She crossed her arms and brought her eyes to Jack. “What is it now?”

“Castiel~.”

“Castiel’s~ _always_ been the problem.”

“But he… well, he is back in Heaven, first of all.”

Farrah arched an eyebrow. “When’d that happen?”

“Like one hundred sixty-four seconds ago.”

“Naturally.”

“And secondly, he… there is no easy way to put this. I am afraid that the other Castiel—our ally, Castiel—never… actually… came back… from Heaven.” He was cringing slightly between his words, slightly anxious for her reaction.

She was speechless initially, as Jack had been as well. However, after twelve seconds of searching, she settled on a reply. “So what you’re telling me is that we _still_ have to plan a rescue mission for the bastard.”

“Yes.”

“This day keeps on getting better, doesn’t it?”

“I would not say that, no.”

She scoffed, shaking her head. “Damn it,” she sighed. “Well, back to the drawing board, I suppose.” She gestured toward the door, prompting Jack to lead the way back into the Resistance’s safe house.

“Rise and shine, sleepyheads,” Farrah beckoned, bursting into the door—a stark contrast to the slow, uncomfortable saunter Jack had entered with.

Sam woke first. His left eye popped open and looked around the room. It rolled and settled on Farrah as his right flitted awake as well. He pushed himself up into a sit. “Farrah,” he said, his voice low and groggy. “Some of us actually sleep.”

“Yeah, well, find time later,” she replied hotly with a short shrug. She looked around at the rest of the crowd, none of whom had stirred. “Come on,” she prompted Sam. “Help me wake them.” She looked up at Jack who was standing stiffly with his arms folded. “You too.”

The three went to work shaking the crowd awake.

Sam opted to wake his brother, knowing how temperamental Dean could be. “Dean,” he said, approaching him. “Dean, get up.” When Dean did not respond, Sam gently placed his hands on his brother’s side, which jolted him up immediately.

“What the hell, Sam?” he growled, prepared to roll back over to sleep.

“Hell if I know. It’s Farrah. She said to get up.”

“I hate angels,” Dean said irritably. With a sigh, he got up.

Farrah had woken Rufus and Bobby with the touch of her hand, and both of them were about as thrilled as Dean had been.

Jack woke Mary, but it didn’t take much. All he’d done was neared her, and the creaking of the floorboards was enough to break her sleep.

Farrah looked around at the group, making sure no one had drifted off again in secret.

“What’s this about, Farrah?” Dean asked, crossing his arms. “And can you try and make it fast? Sleep is important, thanks.”

“It’s about—”

“We’re short a halo,” Rufus observed.

“Yes, and if you’d let me finish, you would know what happened.”

Rufus held up his hands defensively. “Take it away, then.”

“ _Thank_ you. Now, Jack’s told me that Public Enemy No. 1 has returned to the safety of Heaven, which, frankly, is already ass news. And _then_ he tells me that C has actually probably been imprisoned literally this whole time. Meaning we fucked up. And now we need to get to Heaven (again), not only to kill the beast, but to save, in the context of this metaphor, the beauty. So that’s cool.”

“Sorry, repeat that, but get rid of all the fancy shit,” Bobby replied, still only around half-awake at best.

Farrah rolled her eyes, but she obliged. “Both Castiels are in Heaven.”

“See, you could have just said that the first time, and it would have made everything a hell of a lot less complicated.”

“Yeah, well, tough,” she snarled. “Look, I’m going to let the kid take it from here, but just know we have a search-and-rescue to assemble. Again.”

“That’s great and all, but you’re the only one left who can go to Heaven. You realize that, right?” Dean asked.

“Yeah, I figured that out. But it doesn’t matter, because there’s nothing we can do about that, is there?”

Dean pursed his lips.

“Exactly. Now,” she turned to Jack. “What happened?”

Jack shrugged. “I mean, Sam and Dean would know that Castiel—the good one—and I have a connection. And I just did not feel it with the one that was with us. So I confronted him, and he ended up flying up to Heaven.”

“Fantastic,” Dean sighed. He looked up to Farrah, who arched her eyebrows as a reply.

“So, basically, what we’ve been _trying_ to say is that our mission has gone from get to Heaven and take down Naomi to get to Heaven, rescue Castiel A, dispose of Castiel B, _and_ take down Naomi. Not necessarily in that order. And since all of that can _only_ be done in Heaven, I’m afraid the lot of you are completely useless to me,” she scoffed.

“So, what then? You just fly up there on a suicide mission, and we wait here to see what comes down?” Rufus asked skeptically.

“Guess so.”

“Yeah, that ain’t going to cut it.”

“I mean, we’re well and truly out of options here. That’s literally the only shot we have, since, like we’ve had to cover _multiple_ times now, none of you can cross that threshold.”

“Well, at least communicate with us.”

“Through what? Through the kid? You know that causes him pain, yeah? I’ve seen him clutching those temples of his in the middle of the night. Angels’ voices are piercing.”

“Worth it.”

“Really? Hurting a _kid_?”

“The kid is able to decide for himself,” Jack interrupted. He looked between Rufus and Farrah before nodding at the man. “I will do it.”

“You’re joking,” Farrah said with a half-laugh.

“It is for Castiel.”

“Well, alright, I guess.”

“Hold on,” Bobby said, raising his hand as he interjected. “I might have a better solution.”

“All ears,” Farrah replied coolly.

“I know some folk ‘round these parts. Real geniuses with wires and radios and whatever else. Could they help?”

Farrah looked up as she thought it over before shrugging and returning her gaze to Bobby. “Theoretically. Angel communication is all about frequency. Hack into the right one, and they could probably do it.”

“Worth a shot?”

Farrah looked at Jack. “You good being Plan B?”

Jack shrugged.

“Perfect. Give those ‘folks’ of yours a ring, and tell them to be fast. Lord only knows what our _friend_ Castiel has been through up there.”

§§§§§

Since Naomi left him be, it wasn’t much more than incessant solitude. He was still bound to the chair, and he was still somewhat out of it, but overall he was expecting much worse. Naomi never came back, and the rest of the angels steered clear of the prison, so he remained completely undisturbed. Still, with nothing to do and no one to taunt, it became somewhat of a bore to be chained up in the prison. The isolation alone was growing excruciating.

Luckily for Castiel (or, more aptly, unfortunately), his double’s first act upon returning was to stop in and check up on his hostage.

“Hey there, kiddo,” he purred, leaning against the bars and standing upright with his chin inclined and his eyes looking down upon his foe. “What’s new?”

Cas merely snarled.

“Not much, I suppose. Heaven’s prison _is_ rather dull, I’m afraid. But I was considering a remodel—liven the joint up a little, yeah? I feel like instead of perpetual loneliness we get some of Naomi’s protégés down here to… hone their craft. It’s more efficient for Naomi, _and_ it gets things going around here. What say you?”

Again, no verbal reply, just an angry facial expression.

“What? Not one for HGTV: Dream Heaven? Guess I can’t blame you. If I spent my life tethered to a pair of humans, it’d play with my mind too.”

Again, same response.

“You are about as fun as the hole you’ve been in, Cassie. Wake up, why don’t you? Where’s your wit, your bravado? You’re not the only one bored here, you know.”

Still, no answer.

In a desperate attempt to get a reaction, Castiel~ reached through the bars and gave his doppelgänger a slap across the face. “Come on, Cassie. Talk to me.”

All he got was aggravated panting.

“Alright,” Castiel~ conceded. “Have it your way,” he said, annoyedly leaving the room. He stopped in front of the door. “I’ll have Naomi get to work on her training.” And he left with that.


	22. Exodus

Bobby got in touch with his people, and they, reluctantly, agreed to be of assistance. Anything to fight back against Heaven.

“So who’s the Geek Squad, Bobby?” Rufus asked, folding his arms.

“You remember back… gotta be a decade ago now—before all this _angel_ business. That pair of young folk I ran with for a little while—them and that older guy.”

“Ah, right. What were their names again? Chucky, Alan, and Fred?”

“Charlie, Ash, and Frank,” Bobby corrected, shaking his head. “You met them once or twice. We worked a pretty big vamp nest out in Nashville back in ’08.”

“Ah, yes, I remember. All numbers and binary with that lot. And you think they’ll crack those frequencies for you? Didn’t exactly end on the best of terms.”

“Think I don’t remember?”

“I think _they_ sure do.”

“Well, I talked to them on the phone, and, even though they’re still bitter about…” He paused to take in a deep breath. “Martin, they’re _more_ bitter about Heaven. So they’re in, if it means taking down the King.”

Rufus shrugged. “Sounds good to me. Where they been hiding all these years?”

“Back up in North Dakota—in Devils Lake. Should be here in just under a day.”

“We don’t have that kind of time,” Farrah interrupted, entering the safe house’s tiny kitchen, where Rufus and Bobby had been having their chat.

“We’ll make it,” Bobby scoffed.

“Castiel could be dead by then, don’t you get it?”

“And he could very well be dead now.”

“Why so cavalier? He’s your ally too. And we _need_ him—now more than ever, with Jofiel dead. He and I are the only ones able to go to Heaven. If the King wants us to take the fight there, I need C to be there with me, or we have no chance.”

“I’m not _cavalier_. I care.”

“Act like it.”

“I’m bringing in men. I _am_ acting like it.”

“You people are impossible, you know that? If you’d just let me go up there without all the strings, this would all be a hell of a lot simpler.”

“Yeah, until you’re found. And they kill both you _and_ Castiel in retaliation, and suddenly none of us can go to Heaven.”

Farrah rolled her eyes. “It’s not like you’ll be able to do anything anyway. You can communicate with me maybe, but I fail to see how that helps me if things go south.”

“I don’t know, princess. _You’re_ the one who’s been on angel radio since the dawn of time. _You_ tell us how it works.”

She sighed and pursed her lips. “Alright, fine. Like I said, it’s all about frequency—and maybe a bit of concentration, but you’ll have technology doing that for you.”

“And is it universal?” asked Rufus, crossing his arms.

“Should be.”

“Well, there you go. That’s how we help.”

“You want to elaborate?”

“We use that ‘universal frequency’ to distract the other angels.”

“Rufus is right—we do that, they stay off your trail,” Bobby interjected.

Farrah nodded slightly. “You might be onto something.”

Rufus smirked.

“But we still have to wait for them to get here,” Farrah said, dashing the optimism.

“Do we?” Bobby asked, narrowing his eyes. “You have wings.”

“Fair point,” she replied. “I can fetch them, but I need a location.”

Bobby looked at the busted-up clock on the wall. It was cracked and dirty, but still readable and functional all the same. “I got in contact around two hours ago. Your best bet is somewhere around Burlington.”

“On it,” she said. With a short nod, she was off.

It took her around nine minutes to get back to Portland, accompanied by rather displeased looking company. The girl was holding a massive radio in her hands.

“We’re back,” she announced. “Let’s get this show on the road.”

“Hold on,” Charlie restrained, holding her hands up to display the radio. “We don’t know how this _works_ or what we’re doing or, well, really anything.”

“You’re all smart, I hear. You’ll get it,” Farrah assured.

“Just explain it,” Frank demanded somewhat irritably.

Farrah rolled her eyes. “I don’t know how your archaic little machine works. But I can send out a frequency, and if you can find it, we should be good to go.”

“Sure,” Charlie replied, her voice breathy. “Yeah, whatever you say.” She looked up at the men she’d arrived with, both of whom were somewhat significantly older than her. “Either of you know how to finagle this?”

Ash pushed her lightly, moving her to her left, before gesturing to tell her to set the radio on the kitchen countertop. Saying nothing, he bent down slightly to put the radio dials at eye level. He looked up to Farrah, keeping his position. “It’s all you, angel.”

Farrah nodded and concentrated on producing a signal miniscule enough to be tuned out by the angels up in Heaven.

After playing around turning the knobs, Ash clapped his hands together and stood fully up. “We got it,” he announced. His words were soundtracked by a high pitched noise that sounded like a whistle—Farrah’s signal.

“Alright,” Farrah replied. She looked around the room. “Here goes everything.” Closing her eyes, she flew up to Heaven, landing in that of a sixteen-year-old girl who’d died of leukemia. She looked around, unsure of where the exit would be.

The girl’s Heaven was in a coffee shop, where she was off on her lonesome drinking a hot cup of tea and reading a novel, completely unaware Farrah had even arrived. Making sure to keep discreet—she didn’t want to disturb the girl for fear of alerting the rest of the angels—she felt around for anything out of place. She smirked when she felt the gap in the floor tiles, kneeling down and pushing them apart until she fell through the floor to a white, circular room with nothing but doors—a hub, as Heaven liked to call them, where angels could access different sections.

The one she’d found had doors reading **Tech** , **Stats** , **Defense** , **Control** , **Intelligence** , and **Prison**. She knew the most likely places were the latter three, but wasn’t quite sure where to check first. Although she ended up right, the only reason she went to the Prison first was because she knew for sure Naomi in Intelligence and Castiel~ in Control would be highly protected, and she was hoping beyond hope that she could find her ally before taking any of that on. And besides, the people down on the ground hadn’t, as far as she knew, done anything about security yet; heading to either of those locales would be a suicide mission. The nice thing about the Prison was that it was already so fortified that angels hardly ever felt the need to be there.

As Castiel~ hadn’t opted to keep Cas incredibly hidden, it didn’t take long upon her arrival at the Prison for her to find his cell.

“Leave me alone,” Cas groaned upon hearing her footsteps nearing his cell.

Naomi’s protégés had not been kind.

Regardless, he was still conscious, though in pain and soaked in his own blood. She looked him up and down. She put her hands to the bars. “Castiel—it’s me. Farrah. We’re getting you the hell out of here,” she assured.

He narrowed his eyes at her. “Like hell,” he scoffed. “How?”

She looked around for something—anything—to use to get in. As it stood, with protégés coming in and out, the security was slightly more lax than she’d remembered it being, which gave her hope that she could break in.

There was still a box of instruments Bartholomew, the most recent to take a stab, had carelessly left out within the cell. In it was one of the needles Naomi treasured so much—just thin enough to pick a lock, Farrah presumed.

“Can you slide me that box?” she asked him.

He nodded and pushed it to her. “Farrah, you’re insane.”

“Yeah, maybe just a little,” she conceded, taking the tool and concentrating heavily on the cell lock.

Eventually she got it to open. Using the radio, she told the humans back on Earth that she’d gotten Castiel.

She ran into the cell and looked him over. “Well, that won’t do at all,” she scoffed, shaking her head at his wounds. “I need you in fighting shape, C.” So she held a hand over his abrasions, and the pair watched as they healed on command. “ _That’s_ more like it.”

He stood up and gave himself a onceover before looking back to Farrah with furrowed brows and wide eyes. “Are you out of your mind?” he asked hotly. “What the hell are you doing?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” she asked. “We’re bringing Heaven to her knees, Castiel,” she said wondrously, gesturing between herself and him when she said “we.”

“We’re going after my double? On his domain? Farrah, we won’t last a second—not with only the two of us.” He looked around again, now more confused. “Why are you alone? Where is Jofiel?”

“Dead,” she said shortly. “Look, it’s just us, but we have the rest of Mystery Inc. downstairs with a radio hacking into angelic frequencies and causing disturbances. If everything goes right, we should have a clear shot—at Naomi _and_ at Castiel~.”

“You know about Naomi?”

“Turns out that holy abomination you lot call a child is actually quite useful,” she said with a shrug. “We heard all about her—well, he did, at least.”

Castiel nodded, still skeptical. “Here we go, I guess.”

“That’s the spirit,” she praised facetiously. She gestured forward, telling him to go ahead of her. He obliged, and she followed him outside of the cell and, subsequently, the prison ward. Once outside the wing, she grabbed him by the shoulder to turn him around. “I’m heading to Intelligence; you go straight for the top. He shouldn’t see you coming, but he’d sure as hell be expecting me.”

“Wait—you want to split? Farrah, we’re already outgunned as it is.”

“Not if they’re alone,” she replied with a shrug. “I know them both. They usually are, assuming the bodyguards are gone. It pays to have a former Employee of the Month on your side,” she informed with a wink. “Only reason either should have company is if they expect a play, which neither should. Everything goes accordingly, we should be set to make it out of here alive.”

“ _If_ everything goes accordingly. And I’m laying it out right now—plans I’m involved in don’t have a habit of ‘going accordingly,’ Farrah.”

“A little sanguinity wouldn’t kill you, Castiel.”

He rolled his eyes, but ultimately he accepted. “If we survive? What’s the plan from there?”

“You mean _when_ we survive?” she asked. “Meet in the gardens, and we’ll figure it out from there, I suppose.”

“Wonderful.”

With that, they went their separate ways. To keep the bystanders posted, Farrah communicated down to their radio, “Split up. Cas on Cas, girl vs girl. Catch it on pay-per-view.”

Dean was openly irritated. “They split?” he repeated. “She’s going to get him _killed_. She’ll get _herself_ killed.”

“Nah, that’s where we come in,” Charlie reassured. She looked between her partners, Ash and Frank, and they each nodded at one another.

Ash, as he was in control of the radio, beckoned for Jack to come over to it, and the Nephilim obliged. “I want you to put your hand on this radio, and call out to the angels. Say whatever it takes to get them away from Naomi and Castiel~.”

Jack nodded, and he did as told. As such, when Castiel reached his double’s office and Farrah reached Naomi’s, they were vacated save for their targets.

They had different methods. Castiel’s was more stealthy and subdued. He knew the second he opened the door, he’d be found out, but he didn’t want to make a scene of it. Farrah, however, burst into Naomi’s room completely shamelessly, causing the latter angel to jump as the door flew back and hit the wall with a thud.

“Miss me?” Farrah asked mockingly upon her entrance.

Naomi scoffed, rising from her chair. “I should have known you were involved in all this disturbance,” she said to herself, shaking her head as she approached Farrah. Standing just in front of Farrah, Naomi stopped and crossed her arms. “You haven’t changed a bit, you know. And it’s been a damn long time.”

“Too long, Mimi.”

“You remember the pet name. How precious.”

“Oh, I remember a _lot_ of things, Naomi. And I’m sure my friend Cas does too. You know him, yeah? Not the one you’re whoring yourself out to for employment—the one you and your boss unjustly held in prison.”

“Ah, so that’s what this is about, hm? Save the damsel in distress?”

“Sure, assuming Heaven herself is the damsel. C was a… necessary side product. You know, he’s probably having a similar conversation with Heaven’s very own Mussolini as we speak.”

“And he won’t get too far, I assure you. I saw the state he was last in.”

“He’s tougher than you give him credit for, Naomi. Guarantee it.”

Naomi gave a scowl before taking a swing at Farrah, who blocked the punch with her left hand and retrieved her angel blade with the right. Holding Naomi’s outstretched arm over her head, Farrah ran her opponent through. “That wasn’t so hard,” she said in Naomi’s ear, waiting for her light to burn out before dropping the dead vessel to the ground and brushing off her hands.

Meanwhile, Castiel~ had, in fact, noticed Castiel entering his office.

“You aren’t slick, you know,” he said to draw his enemy inwards. When Castiel stepped fully into the light, angel blade in hand, Castiel~ shook his head. “We’ve been here before, yeah? Never seems to go too well for you.”

“I have a feeling this time’s going to be different. Call it sanguinity.”

“Oh, wow, we learning new words down in the prison? Not exactly the torture I had in mind, but Naomi’s protégés know best, I suppose. Second, of course, only to the woman herself.”

“Did I mention Farrah’s gone after Naomi? Any luck and your interrogator’s dead by now. You should keep better track of your things.”

“Noted,” Castiel~ said. He dropped an angel blade from his sleeve. “You really want to do this, Cassandra?” he asked.

Castiel nodded.

“Have it your way,” Castiel~ replied with a shrug. In a display of brute strength alone, he blew out the lights in the office as his wings flashed along the walls in all their glory. They were magnificent, stretching end to end, corner to corner, and adorned with all of their feathers. They were strong, as Castiel’s had been before the fall. They were _angels’_ wings, no doubt about it. They were haunting, captivating, and relatively horrifying in context.

Determined nonetheless, Castiel showcased his own set of wings, to the amusement of his foe. His wings, in contrast, though they were equal in length, were decrepit, wasting away with feathers still falling off of them. The ones that were still holding on for life were loosely attached. They were meek little wings in comparison—a hummingbird trying to give goosebumps to a hawk.

After their shows, they went at one another. Castiel~ clearly had an upper hand, given he could fly to avoid hits rather than relying on his vessel’s maneuverability alone, but it was of no import to Cas as he played defensive, waiting for his opponent to strike before deflecting the attacks and waiting for the prime, most opportune opening to launch his own offensive.

He found it. Castiel~, aiming to strike the heart, held his hand just slightly above Cas. As it came down, Cas grabbed Castiel~ by the wrist, stopping him in his tracks. He pried open his opponent’s hand, forcing the blade to clang to the ground, but he dared not pick it up. Though a second weapon meant an advantage, he was not entirely sure Castiel~ didn’t have one of his own should exactly such a situation arise.

As it stood, he did not. Now unarmed, he opted to utilize his wings to the best of his ability—the one thing he had his foe did not. He allowed for Cas to take a swing, and he flew off the second it neared him.

When he returned, in record time, he held in his hand Naomi’s blade, which had been left at the scene of her death. (Farrah had left everything as was when she ditched the crime to go to their meeting place in the gardens.)

“I was hoping Naomi might still be alive,” Castiel~ admitted, twirling her blade in his hand. “Ah, well. Is what it is, I suppose. Her blade will do just fine.”

Not a full moment later, Castiel sustained a hefty wound to the abdomen when his opponent nearly drove the angel blade through his torso from behind. As it had been, he’d managed to pry it out of himself, but, while it made it so he did not die, it also made it so the wound was torn open more, creating extra weakness to overcome. Still, he had his determination and the unrelenting willpower it took to turn around and grab the blade and draw it back on his foe, holding him by the wrist.

The fight ended as Castiel grabbed his opponent by the shoulders and pushed him onto the desk. He held Castiel~ down with his right hand and held his angel blade to his chest with his left. “You’re a little out of your league,” he jeered.


	23. Let the Good Times Roll

After his fight with his double, Castiel was physically incapable of getting himself to Heaven’s garden. Once he’d finished Castiel~ off, he’d fallen to the ground, barely finding the strength to breathe, let alone walk.

His absence did not go unnoticed with Farrah, who had been anxiously awaiting his company in the garden. She had prepared herself for his battle to take time, but she was beginning to fret for his life as the moments dragged by.

“Alright,” she said to herself, pulling at her coat and stiffening her posture to brace herself for the worst. “Time’s up.”

She dashed out of the garden and to the Control Center. The door was still closed, as Castiel~ had flown rather than gone by foot. She took in a deep breath and put her hand to the knob.

When she opened the door, she felt a weight lift off her chest. “Castiel,” she breathed, more relieved than she’d ever been in her life. She looked over Castiel’s~ dead body. “I’ll be damned. You did it, Castiel. It’s over.”

“Don’t praise me too much,” he forced himself to say. He gestured to the wound in his back to the best of his ability.

“God, Castiel,” she gasped, kneeling down to his level. She was shaking her head at the wound before looking dead into his eyes. “You have to know I can’t heal that, yeah?”

“What?”

“I mean, if I had time, sure. But it’s deep. It’s _too_ deep. You know we have our limitations, yeah? Well, you’ve passed mine.”

He didn’t reply, save for an outcry of agony.

Shaken, she darted her eyes every which way in desperate search for a plan. “Maybe there’s someone who can.”

“ _Who_?” Castiel scoffed. “No one has that kind of power.”

“You sure that kid of yours couldn’t do it?”

Castiel furrowed his brows. “Maybe.”

“In any case, he can definitely do it _with_ my help,” she said, primarily to reassure herself more than to tell Castiel a truth.

“It’s worth a shot.”

“Damn right it is,” she affirmed with a nod, putting her hand on his shoulder and flying the pair down to the safe house in Portland.

Their arrival was abrupt. As such, the people still in Oregon were fairly startled by it, having been expecting word from her.

“Sorry,” she said, knowing their grievance before it had the chance to be aired. “I know—I should have said something, but…” She was cut off as the angel at her arm slipped to his knees. “I suppose it’s obvious.”

“Is he… going to die?” Mary asked, her eyebrows knitted into concerned arches and her lips in a definitive frown.

Farrah shook her head vehemently. “Not if I have anything to do with it,” she replied. She looked over to Jack. “I need your help, kid.”

Jack approached her, taking her hand when she outstretched it towards him. “What do I do?” he asked with wide eyes that never left Castiel.

“Channel me,” she said. “I just need your power; I’m not enough.”

Together, their energy was capable of closing the flesh wound, though his strength was still on the mend, as was typical of injuries of the sort. Still, in any case, he could stand. He opted not to anyhow, drained from his battle.

Farrah clapped her hands together, beaming now knowing everything wrong had been made right. “We did it,” she said to the crowd.

“What happens now?” Bobby asked, inclining his head.

“Well, hate to kill the moment, but Sam, Cas, Jack, Mary, and I all have a dimension to get back to,” Dean said.

“Right, of course,” Farrah said with a slow nod. She bit her lip somewhat anxiously before asking, “Could I tag along?”

“What? Why?”

“Heaven didn’t have a contingency plan, for starters, and I’m not looking to deal with… any of what happens up there. And, honestly, Jofiel is dead, so there’s not much for me here—not to slight Bobby and Rufus, of course.”

Dean looked at the crowd from his dimension, and eventually he shrugged at Farrah. “Your life, your call.” He turned to Rufus and Bobby. “You coming too?”

“Nah,” Bobby answered. “We’re fine where we are. Whatever happens, we’ll be good.”

Rufus nodded in agreement.

“What about the lot of you?” Farrah asked, now addressing Charlie, Frank, and Ash. “Up for a trip through time and space?”

“As _Doctor Who_ as that sounds, no,” Charlie replied.

“We’re headed back to Devils Lake,” Frank said dryly. “We came; we did our part. And now we just want to get the hell home.”

“Don’t we all,” Farrah breathed.

After bidding adieu, the two groups—one for each dimension—parted ways. And life went on as was to be expected for all of them.

Chaotically. Recklessly. Violently. Thrillingly. Heavenly.

Last anyone caught wind, Raphael had stepped up and taken the reigns in the Alternate Timeline’s dismantled Heaven.

**Author's Note:**

> For the record, yes these chapters are all pretty long, save for 23. But no, they aren't all quite as long as the first few. Also, its title is intentionally stylized in all lowercase, before someone gets irate because it's "improper." _Thirteen_ didn't look as good to me; leave me alone.  
>  Also, another note. Heaven and Hell are conspicuously absent in _thirteen_. I get that. But, frankly, it's hard to insert them into the narrative given the story I've put together. I'm absolutely set on doing _fourteen_ (a sequel, obviously), and, trust me, they're not missing out on that action. I've got it all settled.


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